Midsummer Panic
by emi lulu
Summary: Oh, we're still so young and desperate for attention. . . [SxK, AUish]
1. 001

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

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Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 1  
Your Rose-coloured glasses are on the wrong way

"Hey…" she said into the phone, while she knocked impatiently on the front door. She held her phone to her ear, her bag dangling off her knocking arm. She looked around the street frantically and then returned her attention towards the door that was _refusing_ to open. She rolled her eyes, "Huh? Yeah, he's not answering the door." She said, bitterly into the phone. She dropped her hand and sighed, whipping around to lean on the door. She gazed down the street tiredly with a slight frown on her face. "He probably slept in. Can you call him for me? If he sees my number, he won't pick up."

"Y-you… want… me to call him?" the female voice on the other line stuttered softly.

"… yes." She replied, awkwardly. Was it such a big deal? A five-second phone call wouldn't cost her her life. The girl on the other side gave a dramatic sigh and in an instant, Kairi knew this wasn't gonna be easy. "Do you have his number?"

"Yes… yes, I have it." She added, once again in a melodramatic wisp. Kairi thought she was going to scream. The girl replied, "But—but what do I say… if he picks up?"

"Tell him to get out of bed and come to the door." She told her, simply. "… tell him it's Riku. Then he'll get up."

"But what if he asks—" a gasp. "—what if he asks how I know Riku's at his door? Ooooh, Kairi, what if he thinks I'm weird?" she was clearly panicking.

"Namine, really." Kairi rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. "It's my birthday and I wanna go to the beach, why is _everything_ disagreeing with me today?" she whined, biting down on her lip in a childish manner. She turned back to the door and banged on it as hard as she could. "This isn't fair—Sora! Open the door, I _know_ you're in there! If you dare try to ruin my birthday, I'll kill you!" she practically screamed. Birds by a nearby street sign flew away in terror, as Kairi heard footsteps approaching the door. _Finally_, she thought.

The door swung open and before Kairi could continue her bitching session, a woman appeared. Her light brown hair was soaked and she wore a robe, tightly pulled over her shoulders. She looked at Kairi in shock before easing her irritation just a little. Kairi gave a feeble smile and what would be a bow if she wasn't frozen from yelling threats over the door. "… Miss Akela…" she began slowly. "Hi."

"Happy Birthday, Kairi, dear." She smiled suddenly and reached over to give the auburn-haired girl a hug. She clearly just ran out of the shower to answer the door. "Sora's in his room."

_Figures._ "Sleeping?" she asked.

"No. Why?"

_I'm going to kill him. _"… no reason." She smiled, nervously. Miss Akela pushed open the door to let her in and Kairi instantly rushed towards the staircase. Before Miss Akela could tell her anything, she was already up the stairs and halfway down the hall.

"Where are you? Should I tell Riku you aren't coming?" it was Namine. Kairi couldn't believe she was still on the line. Anything to hear Sora talk, right? She figured as much, so she didn't ask. Namine was way too much of a simple-minded person for her own good.

"No, no, I'm coming, I swear." Kairi said into the phone before knocking once on the last door at the end of the hall. When she heard no answer, she pushed open the door and almost got blinded by sunlight. All the windows in the room were pulled open. They illuminated the normally gloomy dull blue walls and red _everything_ in his room. She found him sitting on his bed, staring avidly at this thing in his hands that had earphone wires sticking out of it. Just as she thought; the earphones were stuck snuggly in his ears and he was staring, unblinking, at the miniscule screen in front of him. Kairi sighed. "You might as well hang up, he's not gonna talk." She said into the phone with a slight smile as she wandered over to his desk.

"Huh?" Namine coughed a little. "Oh… Kairi," she began shakily. "D-do you think that's why I'm still on the line or something? Ha." She gave a short laugh. "You called me, so you should hang up first."

"Fine, I will—"

"Don't do it, Riku says he's coming back and he wants to talk to you."

Silence.

"Hey, " Kairi mumbled, poking him in the shoulder. He snapped his attention over to her and jumped a little, quickly shutting off the whatever-he-was-watching. "Where are your keys?"

"Just because it's your birthday," he began edgily, pulling the earphones out of his ears. "Doesn't mean you can just walk into my house like I know you. Who do you think you are, anyway?" he scoffed, crawling off his bed and rushing over to his desk.

There was a gasp from Namine on the other side of the phone—"He sounds sick. Is he? Ask him if he's okay!" Kairi ignored her.

Before she could say anything, he laughed and flashed her a slight smile, while retrieving his keys from somewhere under his clothes on his desk. "I'm kidding."

"I know." Kairi said with no signs of remorse in her voice. "So," she began, flipping her hair out of her eyes absently. She grinned, "Did you buy me something? Huh? Give me hints."

Sora turned around and glared at her, slowly shaking his head. Kairi quickly kept quiet before she started yelling obscenities. It was bad enough she freaked out his mom this morning. Instead, she gave him a painfully sweet smile and poked him in the stomach a few times, to which he cringed and moved away from her. "You did buy me something, didn't you? Tell me! Is it shiny and expensive?"

"Please, Kairi." He laughed, as he left for the front door.

"Sora," his mom called from the kitchen. When Kairi arrived downstairs, she saw her emerge from the kitchen, now fully clothed and looking radiant. Kairi was always interested in Miss Akela's age, but she never asked. Either way you looked at it, she looked pretty young to be the mother of an 18-year-old. "If you're coming back after 9, call me. If not, I'll be home." She gave him a brilliant smile to which he didn't return. Instead, he only nodded, accompanied by a distant 'sure', and reached for the doorknob to leave. "Bye, Kairi!" she waved to her as she rushed after him. Kairi stopped for a second to wave and then disappeared outside too.

"Okay, so," Kairi began, speaking into her phone, as she got into the passenger's seat of the car. Sora looked at her suspiciously for a moment, and then resumed ignoring the fact she had been babbling away on the phone for what seemed like forever. Kairi was just like that. Best to leave her and the phone alone. She continued, "Do me a favor, and remind Selphie that she has my shoes."

"I will, I will," Namine replied, offhandedly, but she instantly shut up when she heard Sora talking on the other line.

"Who do you keep talking to?" he asked, taking odd glances at her. He strained his neck to get a glimpse of the caller ID and maybe how long she'd been on the phone, almost letting the car stray off the road. Kairi almost screamed before he swerved back onto the road. "Do you even pay for that at all? I swear you said you were broke. And there's no such thing as a 'cheap plan' on Destiny Islands—"

"Can you watch where you're going!"

"—not even if you go around whoring out yourself with salesmen—"

"If you kill me, I'll haunt you forever and kick your ass in your sleep!"

"So hostile, so hostile…" Namine hummed from the line.

"Whatever." He said, simply. "Dude, where are we going? The beach, you said?"

"Yes. For like, the hundredth time."

"Okay, well stop telling me things when I'm half asleep."

"What?"

"You can't call me at 2 in the morning and expect me to understand what you're saying."

"It wasn't two in the morning—Sora, your clock is _broken_."

"Whatever."

"My God, drive faster, I can't stay in here anymore, this ride is gonna kill me."

"Why don't you learn to drive already? How long has it been since you supposedly 'got your license'—"

"Stop taking your hands off the wheel."

"Answer me."

"Seriously, stop doing that, it's scaring me!"

"It's been like a year now, hasn't it?"

"I should've just went with Riku."

"No, I enjoy your company. It's refreshing."

"You better have gotten me something good…"

"Took long enough!" Selphie screamed ecstatically as she was the first to pull Kairi out of the car the instant it stopped. She took a moment to look at her; she looked shaky, her eyes portrayed an eternal sadness, and everything about her showed she was waving in a pool of slight depression. Selphie frowned and instantly snapped over to Sora, who stopped in his tracks as soon as he felt Selphie's ethereal gaze on him. "What did you do to my friend?" she asked, icily.

"Nothing." Sora said with a simple shrug. "I got her that sword cast thing she wanted, but it was silver and she really wanted the gold one, and so now she's all emo." He said this with a slight hint of sarcasm.

Instantly, Kairi perked up and she slowly turned to Sora with a large grin on her face, her eyes filled with the deepest sympathy. "Did you really?" she asked, softly. "That is _so_ cool, thank you so much—"

"Okay good." He said. "You better be happy, you crazy, crazy child. I've never met a girl that collects swords in my life." He said earthily, but still, a smile managed to creep its way to his lips.

"You collect swords?" Selphie asked, gawking at her. Kairi nodded. "Well," Selphie sighed, exasperatedly. "Why didn't I know? You never told me, why didn't you tell me?"

"Am I the only one who knows that?" Sora asked, offhandedly. Selphie's bottom lip was wibbling as she turned to Kairi with sad eyes. Kairi gave a slight cough and, taking Selphie's arm, guided her far away from their chocolate-haired friend.

"So where's Riku? And where's… Namine?" Kairi asked, noticing her phone line was now cut. She hoped this didn't just mean she didn't pay for the month and that Namine actually hung up.

"He was here, but he left because Namine said he should pick up her friend. This guy, just moved here, lives beside her, but she wasn't at home at the time. So." Selphie said all this very bitterly. Kairi guessed it was because she was still angry about the sword thing. She didn't say anything. After a few moments of silence, Selphie spoke, "They should be here soon." And she trotted away to the bar somewhere, where they were selling discount everything, because it was the end of summer.

Truthfully, she couldn't stand how her birthday was at the end of summer. Nothing good comes from loathing the following school year or foreboding the ending of summer. It was a restless time for everyone, and it was much easier to just ignore her eighteenth birthday. However, Riku insisted that they probably shouldn't. "You're finally gonna be legal, Kai," he kept telling her. She laughed it off, because they'd been teasing her about being the youngest of them all for a long while. It was just her bad luck, even though it only bothered everyone but her.

"Here." Selphie came back, still looking discomforted, and handed Kairi some form of drink. Kairi took it, scanning the tropical looking beverage. "It's from Sora. He says you look really sad, and if you don't get happy soon, he's pawning the sword thing for money to support his guitar collection."

"Thanks." Kairi said, bringing the drink to her lips. Selphie continued to stare at her awkwardly, eyes in evil slits, lips pursed so tightly that they were losing color. Kairi ignored her for a moment—the drink was actually pretty good.

"Do you like him or something?" at this completely random, totally unexpected question, Kairi spit out her drink and collapsed on the beach—laughing. Selphie joined her on the sand, still retaining the same awkward look. "Well. Tell me. Because you only told him about the sword thing, and it makes me feel left out." Selphie was a people person and a true lover of attention—feeling left out was like social exile to her.

"Please, Selphie," Kairi laughed, grasping her sides. She whipped her hair out of her face to reveal a large, toothy smile, and she told her, "That—is funny. And it's okay if you didn't get me anything, because for that—I'll forgive you."

"I'm serious."

"You're still upset about the sword thing, aren't you? I think it was just random conversation but otherwise, no one's supposed to know I collect swords." She shrugged, still clutching her sides in slight laughter. She quickly stopped laughing when she noticed Selphie wasn't buying it. "My God, Selphie, I don't like him. That—if—okay, this whole—he's so… weird! Like, really, even if I did like him, it's impossible to—well he's a nice guy and he's really cool and I like him, he's a nice guy and whatever, but really, Selph, you're not serious."

"… well maybe he likes you." She shrugged. Kairi sighed and rolled her eyes; poor Selphie was a hopeless romantic. To her, guys and girls could rarely ever be friends. It just wasn't something that ever went on in her world. _To see the world through rose-colored glasses,_ Kairi thought. … _it really must be something weird. _

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't." Kairi said, subjectively. She gave Selphie a smile just before she said anything else. "Let's go find, um, people, okay?" she got up and pulled Selphie up from the sand as they headed to the parking lot to flag down unsuspecting cars.

_

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_

… next chapter soon :D Revieeeewww and I'll post faster:D (Yes, that was supposed to be enticing. Forgive me for my unpolished seduction attempt. Next time will be better.) Well yeah. Reviews are encouraged. :D Thanks so much for reading!


	2. 002

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 2  
Emo rocks in your socks make you trip over obvious potholes

Namine quickly fixed her hair, her makeup, and polished her teeth twice before getting out of her car. She straightened her shirt and her skirt, checked to make sure there wasn't a whole lot of sand in her sandals, and headed towards the beachfront in the bravest manner she could. She spotted Kairi and Selphie over by the parking lot entrance waving at people who were driving in. She was lucky they didn't see her yet, they would've called her over—and she was looking for someone. She spotted, down by the bar, a certain chocolate-haired boy… sitting beside Riku. And oh—there was her friend, Roxas. But um—not so important right now, she figured. She slowly and ever so carefully walked over towards them. She held her breath in her chest because if he dared to look over at her with his cobalt blue eyes, she would faint on the spot. Silently praying to herself, she inched closer and closer—

"Namine!" she almost tripped over her feet trying to stop. Reluctantly, she swung around to see Selphie and Kairi waving at her from the parking lot. "What, are you trying to sneak by us or something?"

_Shit, shit, shit…_ she cursed inwardly as she headed over to them. Putting on a fake smile, she said, "Happy Birthday, Kairi." And gave her a hug.

"Aww, thank you," Kairi replied, in mock-surprise. "We were waiting for you guys, how did you drive by without us knowing?" she asked, crossing her arms. She gestured over to Selphie on her left, "Selph here wanted to meet your friend—"

"Kairi!" Selphie gasped in shock and instantly hid her face before it burned red. "Oh my God, don't say it that way, she'll get the wrong idea, but really, is it bad that I just wanna talk to him…" and off she went into a fit of hysterics.

"He's…" and without another word, Namine pointed down the beach. Kairi took her hand and ushered her over to the bar with Selphie close behind. Namine took a deep breath and attempted to try and fix her already perfect blonder-than-blonde hair. "Um… Roxas." She spoke, timidly, as to not disturb the other boys talking amongst themselves. It was too late, though; they noticed and turned around to look at the crowd that randomly formed within seconds. Namine caught Sora's gaze and she quickly snapped her attention over to her friend, "Roxas," she said again, to which he hopped off his bar stool and headed over. "… Selphie, Kairi; this is my friend from elementary school, Roxas Lydmann." He waved to them both. "… Roxas, these are my friends from… school; Selphie Tilmitt and Kairi Okelani."

"Hey," Roxas said, timidly. A simple phrase, of course, but it made Selphie pay attention. She locked her eyes on him and began to scan him carefully, mumbling odd things to herself, which no one could hear, no matter how close you got.

Kairi ignored her.

Roxas did too. Selphie's piercing gaze wasn't enough to sidetrack him. It was as if… someone had just slapped him in the face. He knew it was an awful habit to stare, and he figured maybe someone should inform Selphie as such, but he couldn't help… but to stare at Kairi. Often, when she wasn't looking, his eyes would graze over her delicate features. And when she smiled, it was like the world lit up… he had no idea how something so simple could make him feel this way. It was insane. … and it was weird.

"So—" wait. Was… was she talking to him? He had no idea how, but he was now sitting on a bar stool beside Riku and Kairi. His mouth was frozen, and he hoped to God that he wasn't drooling or anything else that doesn't happen in real life. She took another sip of her drink, elegantly, and spoke. "Have you always lived on the island?"

He tried to speak but all of a sudden, it wasn't working. How did this happen so fast? What was wrong with him? He only gave a slight shrug, and then shook his head really fast. She smiled again, and his arms went weak.

"Yeah, well, we don't get a lot of foreigners." She shrugged. "As you can probably tell, there's _nothing_ to do around here—especially when you're not 18—"

"She's just angry because we ditched her for almost everything because she wasn't of age yet." Riku said, factually, as he took another swig of his drink. Kairi glared at him but he didn't bother to look at her.

"Don't listen to them." Kairi told Roxas. "They're just jealous they aren't young and cool, like me."

"Whatever, Kairi."

"Shut it, Sora."

"You guys are so cute, always arguing and stuff—my God, you are _so_ going out." Selphie smiled sweetly at Kairi. Kairi gave her a weirdly disgusted look, and Selphie just winked at her.

This time, it was Sora who spit out his drink and almost died laughing. Kairi smirked, "See? I told you it's an impossible beyond impossible idea."

"My God, Selphie, that's enough," Sora laughed, trying to stay on his stool properly without falling off. "Like really, we all know I'm hot and she wants me, but that's about as far as our relationship goes—"

"You wish you were hot, Sora—"

"But he is." For her sake, no one heard Namine say that. She hummed quietly to herself and sipped on her straw some more.

"Later we have to drown you, when the sun's setting," Selphie told Kairi. Kairi hated their stupid tradition with a passion and beforehand, she used to somewhat enjoy being 17 and under, because then she didn't have to care about the cold water of the islands while the sun was setting. But it was different now that she had no say in it whatsoever. Before she could protest, Selphie added, "It's like tradition. You guys drowned me, we drowned Sora and Riku and Namine and—okay, so basically everyone who's turned 18 before you." She giggled. "We're throwing you in the water at six."

"I'll be gone by then." She mumbled, offhandedly. "I'm stealing Sora's keys, and Roxas is driving me home."

Selphie could've sworn Roxas almost lost his balance on his seat. If she mentioned it, they'd bring up the fact that she watches him too much.

"Or you could just drive yourself." Sora added, absently. "… if you can actually drive."

"I'm a better driver than you. You almost killed me today." She rolled her eyes and picked up her drink.

"You guys… argue a lot." Namine said, casually. She almost bit her tongue when Sora looked over at her with this suspicious look. She didn't look at him. "It's… just something I noticed."

Kairi said nothing, and she looked over at Sora. He only looked over at her and shrugged, slightly. Namine sighed; _if they say anything along the lines of 'we didn't notice', I'll probably scream. _"It's always been like that." Sora began, slowly. "It's because I care about her. Besides, I would never kill her on purpose." Kairi flashed him a glare, but he pretended not to see her.

"You learn to get used to it." Riku said. "It's like a first language… with a fobby accent you can't get rid of."

Sora stared at him. "… thanks, Riku."

"No problem."

Selphie turned to Roxas… and she started saying something. Whatever Selphie tried to say to him never seemed to seep into his thought pool. Roxas was lost, both mind and soul. Every five seconds when he glanced back at Kairi, it was as if he saw her for the first time. This was a hopeless case… of obsession. But no—it couldn't be 'obsession', could it? He hoped that if he somehow found a way to talk to her and maybe if they knew each other better, then maybe it could be something else. The only things he could remember from the afternoon and the evening was anything Kairi said to him; 'are you okay?', 'did you eat anything?', 'you're skinnier than my dog, eat something'… it was weird. He'd never had this type of feeling before, in general. He had no idea what to do with himself.

He did notice, however, that if anyone was closer besides the group of them, it was Sora and Kairi. He learned from Namine that they knew each other since they were 12 and they've always been very close. They used to live next door to each other, and then Kairi moved a few blocks away just before high school. She also knew, for some reason, everything that inhabited Sora's room, what he put in his locker at school and what he liked to carry around, and she was well-acquainted with his dad, because they were neighbours. Sora's parents got a divorce and he stayed with his mom, also bearing her last name, and his father moved upstate and is Namine's father's colleague. He didn't bother to question how she knew so much about Sora, because it didn't really matter to him.

"They aren't… really… going out, are they?" Roxas asked Selphie later that evening.

"Nope." Selphie shook her head. She then mentioned something about something-or-other, but Roxas wasn't paying attention.

Even though he was incomprehensibly shy, even though when he tried to talk to her his mouth froze up—he still wanted to see her often. And what better way than to befriend her, right? Of course, for any normal person, that would always be an option. But how could he befriend her if he couldn't even talk to her? The next best thing—was Sora. It made perfect sense to him, and probably to no one else.

"What's he like?" Roxas asked Namine the next day.

She seemed as if she was choking on her words, but she eventually gathered up enough solitude to speak. "Well," and she went into a story that could've been 10 pages long. It appeared, as by Namine's description, that he was really energetic, he's incredibly outgoing, he loves spiders and guitars, his favourite color is red, he used to have a pet dog named Safie that got run over by a car when he was really young, he has a really close relationship with his dad, he's only had one serious relationship—which resulted in a multitude of tears, from Namine anyway—and he used to be able to speak French. After sorting through the useless information, he realized that both him and Sora were polar opposites in every way possible.

This was gonna be way harder than he thought.

"This is a bad idea." He said to himself as Namine slid a cappuccino-like drink under his nose. He glanced up at her for a moment, and then resumed sulking in his inanimate despair. "It's a weird idea, and it's a bad idea. It'll never work—"

"What are you talking about?" Namine asked him, oddly. She brought another drink over for herself and sat across from him. "Feeling anxious because of school next week?"

He blinked at her. _School? What?_

"So you are." She sighed with a slight nod. "Well think of it this way," she mumbled, tapping away on the glass. "Um… last year before graduation." She smiled, this time with a more energetic nod. "After this year, there's always a possibility to leave the islands, right? I mean—if you really don't like it here and all—"

"Oh no," he interrupted her and shook his head quickly. He gave her a reassuring smile, "It's… I think it's pretty cool here."

---

"And I think Riku told me Axel was back, but I can't really remember…" She continued aimlessly as she kept her hands bound tightly across the steering wheel. She gave a great sigh and quickly glanced in her rear view mirror. "I have to talk to him. I think he owes me something from over the summer. He never told me he was going on vacation." She muttered, somewhat bitterly. "Did he tell you?"

Kairi didn't say anything at first. She glanced over at Namine and then, at her phone. With a distant tone, she answered, "No."

"Okay." Namine shrugged, casually. "Well anyway…" and off she went into her rambles.

Kairi found it most amusing when, after a few minutes of zoning out, she zoned back in to hear Namine still talking as if she'd never stopped to begin with. Kairi laughed, "You're like… a solo stage show." She giggled lightly, poking buttons on her phone amiably. Namine flashed her a 'look' but she didn't say anything. "I'm serious, you've been going on about something or another since we left my house."

"Are you complaining?" Namine asked, lowering her eyes at her. She scoffed, "Learn to drive already."

Kairi gasped, a look of utter shock sweeping across her face. "Not you too." She shifted a little when she noticed they took another turn into the school parking lot, which was relatively empty save for a few cars spread out. That was pretty good for the first day, especially at 15 minutes to the bell, contrary to popular belief.

As soon as the car stopped and Kairi got out of the car, Selphie came rushing up to them from almost out of nowhere and embraced them both in a deep hug. She seemed to have gotten over the whole ordeal from the previous week and she was back to normal, cheerful as usual. She went into a fit of hysterics—finally, she was gonna be a senior and the like—and then she proceeded to tell Kairi—especially—that Riku sent her a message in the morning, telling her that senior year was slack and they should enjoy the ability to socialize while they still could. "That, and," Selphie continued peering at the message down on her phone. "He says I should give you Axel's number because he's not… going to be able to call anyone for… a month." She looked up. "D'you think he's over-exaggerating?"

"Yes." Kairi stated simply. "And what makes him think that I would wanna talk to Axel? I haven't seen him in forever—"

"682," Selphie said, ignoring Kairi. "543-1298. I'm not sure if the university is considered long distance from here, but dial 1 first anyway, okay?" she smiled sweetly at her, and then proceeded to look around the parking lot, ignoring Kairi's irritated glances at her. "Namine, where's Roxas?"

"Two minutes." She replied, holding up two fingers in front of Selphie's wandering eyes.

"Maybe we should go wait by the front—"

"Come on, Selphie." They muttered simultaneously, taking hold of either arm and pulling her in the opposite direction.

"But wait!" she shrieked.

The echo carried over the parking lot into the dead, morning sky. Confused as to what that really was, Sora stuck his head out of the driver's side window and looked up at nothing. He was pretty sure… well, from what it sounded like, _someone_ was getting beat up somewhere. He was paying no attention whatsoever as he pulled into the school parking lot and freaked out when all of a sudden someone randomly appeared in front of his car. He slammed on the breaks forcefully, stopping only inches away… from the blond-haired boy in front of him… who he swore he'd seen before.

"Roxas?" he asked, exasperatedly and quite loudly too.

The blond nodded and gave an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that—I, um…" _Make something up._ He instantly crouched to the floor, wrestled off a ring from his finger and popped back up with it in his hand. With a grin, he said, "I dropped my… ring."

"In front of my car?"

"… y-yes."

"What?"

"Um," he moved out of the way, standing by the curb. "… s-see you in class."

Sora drove by him slowly, peering at him oddly through the window. Roxas gave a sigh of relief; thank God he didn't find it completely weird and a total outrageous lie. "Pretty decent icebreaker." He said to himself, as if running in front of people's cars was considered a good way to get to know someone. He looked over across the parking lot and spotted what looked like Namine with Selphie and Kairi. All of a sudden, his sudden fears were no more…

This would be easy.

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Thanks for reading! Chapter 3 soon, hopefully ;; Too much reading in English class. :x I appreciate the hits and the comments a lot, so um... thanks and stuff. :D Review if you liked it! 


	3. 003

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 3  
Rip it open and turn it upside down, along with what ever is inside

_A Week Later…_

"Hello?"

"… yeah?"

A smile. "It's… he said you wanted to talk to me."

Silence.

"It's been a week." He said.

"I know. I'm sorry. I should've called sooner, but I was always busy besides late nights and I didn't wanna bother you if you were sleeping."

"It's okay. I probably haven't slept in two days by now."

"Really." She smiled a little. "… hey, listen." A pause. "… you should come back and visit every now and then… o-okay?"

"If I'm not busy."

"So… it's a promise, then."

"Of course."

"… I'll see you, then."

"Of course."

She hung up and folded her phone away into her lap. With lonely eyes, she stared at her hands folded protectively over her knees. Perhaps she was taking this much too seriously. _I bet when he told Riku that I should call him… it wasn't something important._ She said to herself. _He just wanted to know if I was okay. _She sighed and massaged her temples delicately with her fingertips. "God, Kairi, listen to yourself… talk about going crazy." She mumbled in a slur. "… if he was so concerned, he should've called me himself." She added, indignantly. She leaned her head on the doorframe as the wind rushed by her in a furious wave. She took it as a sign that she should cheer up or go back inside; it was pretty cold that day. It was official; summer was long gone.

She was about to head back inside when her phone went off. She quickly flipped it open to silence the annoying chirps of her favourite song. She felt dead and was much too depressed to listen to it just then.

_I hate you, Axel._

She flipped her hair away from her ear and held up the phone, "… hello?" she asked, dully.

"Sora called me." It was Namine.

Kairi sighed and rolled her eyes. "Hey—" Namine said, sharply. "Don't you roll your eyes at me." _How did she know? _"He called me—and he told me that you should come down to the beach. I'm going too—can you believe he asked me to go—?"

"Call him back and tell him I'm tired." She said, quietly, hand still clutched onto the doorknob. "I really don't… feel like going."

Namine sighed and shook her head slightly, "Are you just tired, or is there something else?"

"There's nothing else, I'm just tired—"

"I'm coming to pick you up."

"No, really—"

"I know. It's the driving issue. We'll stop teasing you about it, I promise."

"Namine—"

"I'll be there in five. It's not so far away from your house is it?" And with the last word, she hung up. Kairi's hand was frozen on the doorknob and she stayed silent, tired but silent, for another five minutes until Namine pulled up in her driveway. She didn't turn to look, but Kairi knew it was her. From the corner of her eye, she spotted a wave of blonde rushing towards her. She felt a tug on her arm and then, she felt herself being pulled towards the car and before she could blink, it was pulling away—with her in the passenger seat. She didn't say anything.

"So…" Namine began conversationally. She turned to look at her for a moment. "Did you… call Axel?"

Kairi groaned and curled up on the car seat, facing the window. She rested her head on the back of the seat and slowly closed her eyes.

Namine bit her tongue. "… probablyshouldn'thaveasked." She said quickly and very quietly. She drove faster than usual, figuring that maybe if she exposed Kairi to some other form of environment, she'd feel a bit better. She'd never seen her friend so depressed in a long time. Kairi was never easily bothered by insignificant things, but when things did bother her, she was always on the opposite side of the spectrum. It was amazing how she could switch so fast between the two extremes. At the same time, she was always coaxed back to cheerfulness with simple, emotionless phrases, like: 'he was no good for you', to which she would reply 'you're right', and smile happily, forgetting about her problems. Namine cleared her throat. "If this is about Axel—"

"Don't mention him anymore."

"So it is," Namine nodded, slowly. "Well, you know… let's be honest here."

"No."

"If… it's really that bad… talking to him and stuff," she began, awkwardly. "Then… maybe you should just… not call him…?"

Momentary silence. Namine gave a sigh of relief. She glanced over at Kairi who hadn't fallen asleep, as she had predicted. Kairi twitched a little and pulled her thin sweater tighter around her shoulders. "… I tried." She whispered. "But it doesn't work. I have this… emotional attachment… to him."

Namine looked back at her again. She cleared her throat, "You know you shouldn't, right?"

"I know. But I always feel like I need him."

"… please, Kairi." Namine scoffed, driving into the beach parking lot. "You're making me depressed now. And on top of that, you sound like a soap opera." She muttered, bitterly. Namine happened to have hated soap operas with a passion. To her, it was pure, manufactured crap. "Come here, we have to get you some fresh air." She sighed getting out of the car. She rushed to the other side and pulled Kairi out, slowly guiding her down to the beachfront. The sun had already set over the sea and it looked like an ethereal wave of burning water at the world's edge. It made Kairi feel a little bit better, but she still wasn't entirely feeling herself.

They joined a half-passed-out Sora and a… Roxas. Kairi stopped for a second to look at him, and then continued trudging towards the shoreline. Sora looked up for a second and he couldn't help but notice Roxas suddenly get very tense. … this, of course, he ignored.

Kairi had only noticed that Roxas' presence was only becoming more prominent these past weeks. Since they met him and well into the first week of school, he was… everywhere. She wasn't saying it was a bad thing, but it was really noticeable. She guessed he and Sora became pretty good friends really fast. Sora was really easy to get along with anyway, and she figured Roxas knew that too. "Enough thinking." She mumbled to herself, which caused a few stares from Namine, who dropped down on the ground beside her, and the rest.

Sora sat up, shaking sand out of his hair, and turned to look at her. He sighed and shook his head slowly. "You look like shit."

She took a long yawn and incidentally, fell over into his lap. She curled up on his leg and held his knee like her precious teddy bear that she never wanted to let go. Namine gave a short sigh, but she didn't say anything. And even if Roxas wanted to say something, he didn't think he could. He wondered how exactly the two of them were so close. It was something he really wanted to understand… because it was achievable, right? If it was achievable, then it was something he wanted.

"… so." Namine began curtly, often as Selphie did whenever she was annoyed by something. "… how long have you guys been here?"

Sora looked over at her and she might as well have fallen over. "Like half an hour almost." He told her. She nodded quickly—and was even quicker to bite her lip, just to make sure her mouth wasn't hanging open in awe. Did she _really_ just ask him something—"And my mom keeps calling because she wants… my car. So," he continued, carefully brushing Kairi's soft hair out of her eyes. Every strand was like a bullet to the head for Namine and a stab in the chest for Roxas… they suffered in silence. "… okay, so I have to go—get off me."

"Well then, who else am I supposed to lean on?" Kairi asked, stubbornly, lifting her head and giving him an annoyed look.

"Does it look like my problem?" he asked, shortly, getting to his feet. He quickly checked his pockets for his keys and then waved goodbye to them, heading for the parking lot.

Kairi sighed heavily and fell back on the sand, tiredly.

Namine hummed to herself, attempting to spot Sora from the parking lot inconspicuously.

And Roxas—poor, poor Roxas. His hands were clasped tightly together in his lap and he bit down on his tongue with an incredible nervousness about him. Truthfully, he was terrified. He closed his eyes for a moment and recited a thousand lines in his head. _Why is this so hard? You've talked to her before. Remember? Last week? _He sighed. _Yeah, I can't believe you even regard a 'hey' and 'have you seen Sora?' as conversation. … speaking of which. _A weight dropped from his shoulders and he felt much better. Alas, conversation strikes.

"How long have you two known each other?" he asked, somewhat timidly as he turned to her. "You and Sora, I mean."

She glanced at him for a moment. "Not sure," she gave a feeble shrug. And then, with a devious grin, she said, "I'm sure Namine knows—"

"Shut it, Kairi, no I don't." Namine mumbled, childishly turning around to face the opposite direction. Kairi laughed. Roxas felt a bit better. Things couldn't get any worse, after all—

"Why do you ask?"

He froze. He turned to her quickly and then shyly, looked at his hands, twiddled his thumbs, tried to stop hyperventilating—he was freaking out by all standards. What was he gonna say? He didn't expect her to ask something like that! _Oh really, learn to think sometimes, will you? That's such an obviously personal question! Oooooh my Gooood—what am I gonna say? _"Uh—" he stuttered. "B-because… you guys seem really close."

"Oh." She said, sitting up. Roxas gave an inward sigh of relief. He was safe, even though his throat continued to feel like a relative of sandpaper. … it hurt like a bitch. She sighed and raked a hand through her disturbed auburn hair and turned to look at him. "I guess so."

"You _guess_ so?" Namine snapped back around to gawk at her. Kairi giggled a little. "My God, when you and Axel used to be going out and he was halfway across the island, you used to talk about him everyday and I swear almost everyone mistook this so-called 'Axel' for Sora because you guys were always together." She gave her a weird look and crossed her arms.

"Are you trying to make me feel bad on purpose?" Kairi said, with nothing short of a smile. "Really, Namine, your jealous talk is—"

"_What!_"

"—it's just completely out of control, listen to yourself—"

"Jealous, am I?" Namine asked, through gritted teeth. "Jealous, or… pointing out the obvious?" she shot at her and then purposely leaned over so she could see Roxas on Kairi's other side. "The both of them went out before, you know." She told him, with a certain obnoxious tone. Kairi's eyes went wide as she stared at her but Namine ignored her. "But you know, as close as they are, I think we all agreed that the whole going out thing wasn't the best idea."

"_We all_?" Kairi laughed. "That would just be you."

Namine glared at her.

Roxas looked back and forth between them both. He gave Kairi a nervous smile when she turned to look at him. So how long was it—he so desperately wanted to ask. A month? Two months? Half a year? Maybe… hopefully, a week? He couldn't bring himself to ask.

"Are you always this quiet?" Kairi asked him, shifting a bit closer to him. The idea was, she wanted to be as far away from Namine's evil eyes as possible, but Roxas couldn't help but think that she only did that because she wanted to be closer to him. He stuck with that thought and pondered on it a while, completely forgetting that she asked him a question. "I'm guessing you are." She added with a smile.

"Um," he shook his head nervously and much too quickly. "N-not… really." He replied. "It's, um—" _Think of something and think of something fast. _"I'm just not feeling myself lately… that's all." _WHAT? _

"Oh really?" Namine dropped her envy act and peered over at Roxas with somewhat sad eyes. "You really… fail at adjusting to new environments."

Roxas gave a short chuckle, "I guess so…?"

"Well, don't worry." Kairi nodded. "You should get used to how weird everyone else can be. … especially Namine—" Kairi heard a gasp from over her shoulder. "—do you think she's gotten weirder since the last time you saw her?"

"Kairi!" Namine yelled, her eyes in angry slits. "You keep talking, and I'm not driving you back home!"

"I can… drive you home, if you want." He was lucky. That's purely all this was; luck. It was the work of some supernatural force that allowed this specific opportunity to be opened up at such a crucial time. It was like magic, really, the way it happened. Kairi looked over at him… the world seemed to slow down. She gave him a smile and nodded, fervently. She turned around and said something to Namine and then got to her feet. She extended a hand to Roxas, who took it, and she helped pull him up.

He didn't let go of her hand.

_

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_

Thanks for reading! Chapter 4 soon :D Review if you thought it was spiffy. Review if... you want me to continue? Review anyway. … really. :D


	4. 004

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 4  
If the door won't open, then maybe you should stop running into it

Things were going pretty good.

He wasn't sure how they got this way, but he admired himself for his willingness to accomplish such a seemingly unbelievable task. Even though it had been three weeks since her birthday, a week and a half since the beach visit and the drive home and countless weeks since his insta-bonding with Sora began, one thing still remained solid like a rock; a solid, irreplaceable truth.

HE COULDN'T TALK TO HER.

"Talk about unbearably sad." He mumbled to himself, drowning his head in his hands. He gave a sigh bleeding with stress, and shut his eyes for a moment. He lifted his head for a second and was startled as he spotted Sora, standing directly in front of him, staring at him. They each stared at each other oddly for a while before Sora finally wandered over to the sofa beside his, and then decided to give him weird looks from there.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, bluntly. "The fact that you talk to yourself?"

"… not really." Roxas replied. "But I figure I should… if it's, um… that… weird."

"Maybe." He shrugged and reached for the remote lying on the floor.

Roxas would randomly pop over every now and then, which didn't necessarily bother Sora because at first he didn't care. He figured it was because he wanted someone to talk to, and since Sora was used to talking to almost everyone, he didn't think anything of it. It slowly got to the point where it was like 'Roxas is here again'. If not for sleeping, Roxas almost never left. When Sora thought about it, it was a bit weird in a way. He laughed about it, and he figured that since he was such a cool guy, people naturally flock to him like that. But he couldn't help but wonder if there was some form of ulterior motive behind Roxas' frequent visits.

…

"Hey Namine," he called her up one day. As soon as she heard his voice, she choked. It took her a while to regain her composure. "You okay?" he asked.

"Yes… I'm okay." She replied, uneasily. "What happened?"

"Just wondering… out of plain curiosity and stuff," he said, casually. "But is your friend gay?"

Silence.

"… Namine?"

"Which friend?"

"Roxas."

"…not that I… know of." A pause. "Why do you say that?" there was an odd hint of curiosity in her voice.

"Um. No reason." Sora replied, and then quickly hung up. Namine quickly documented that in her list of phone conversations with Sora.

His mom loved Roxas. She thought he was absolutely 'the cutest thing on two legs'—which scared Sora a lot, because she always referred to him that way. No matter what time he happened to have called or came over, she would always, _always_ let him in. She would feed him fruits until Sora came downstairs, and then life would ensue as usual. She happened to have overheard Sora's phone call with Namine, and she was even more intrigued by Roxas as a person and more inclined to speak on his behalf.

"You better not be telling people… you know," she would tell Sora, while popping peanuts in her mouth. She gave him her most serious and motherly look. "Well, you know," she continued. "That he's gay, if he isn't, okay? That kind of rumor can hurt a person's self-esteem."

He looked at her with nothing but pure confusion. She kept looking back at him and attempting to look intimidating and evil, but Sora was just confused. He blinked at her. "… mom, what?"

She didn't say anything. Instead, she grabbed a handful of peanuts and headed back into the kitchen. Sora didn't say anything either. The doorbell rang, and as he poked his head around the wall, he could see a glimpse of dirty blond hair in the window. "Not now," he groaned, and dropped his head painfully on the breakfast table. Likewise, his mom rushed around the corner to answer the door. She probably invited him over.

"Roxas, dear, hi!" she cried with joy. By now, she was probably giving him a hug, ushering him inside and feeding him peanuts by the door. Sora could assume that much, even with his head on the table recovering from the brutal crash seconds ago.

Sora could hear footsteps from down the hall and he slowly looked up, massaging his head, as Roxas came rushing towards him with a mildly distraught expression. "I have something really important t-to… ask you." He said.

Sora was afraid.

They went upstairs to his room where Roxas instantly took a seat on the bed and began to twiddle his thumbs. Sora sat at his desk chair, facing Roxas, somewhat afraid of what it was exactly that he wanted to "ask" him. He waited for a while, mentally preparing himself for the most obvious questions and what types of reactions he should have. Deep breath… okay.

"C-can you… tell me… everything you know… about Kairi?"

_What? _"What?" he asked, blankly. He wasn't expecting that at all. Roxas nodded firmly and Sora raised his eyebrow at him. "What do you mean by everything?"

"… everything, as in everything." He answered with a short nod.

Sora stared at him.

Roxas really wished he wouldn't; he was nervous enough as it is. It took him forever to realize that unless he got information of out Sora now, his whole 'plan' would never be successful. He silently hoped that Sora would actually decide to speak and put away that weird feeling he had that just screamed 'CLEARLY, THIS GUY IS UP TO SOMETHING'. He stared at him, apprehensively.

Sora cleared his throat. "Very… vague… but, um," he looked at him oddly. "If… for whatever reason… you just _have_ to know, and stuff… then, w-whatever." He thought for a moment. Roxas wished he brought a book to take notes. There was no way he was gonna be able to remember everything Sora said.

From what he could gather; her birthday was August 28 and she loved astrology. Her father is 'this research scientist' and her mother is 'a lawyer or something'. She can be really talkative and 'annoying' at times, but she's generally a happy person. She cries a lot during sad movies, she loves to sing babies to sleep, her favourite colour is green, she only likes reading romance novels, she has an unhealthy obsession with swords and the samurai, she loves cherry soda and 'will eventually love daiquiri', she used to want to be a ballerina, if you poke her in her side, she'll cringe and 'go all emo', she's really attached to her phone, she's always broke, and the list goes on…

Somewhere in between his long ramble, which only turned out longer because Roxas wouldn't stop asking extra questions about this, that and the other thing, Sora got a strange, strange idea. For what other reason would Roxas be asking about all this stuff? He thought to himself, what could one do with all this seemingly unnecessary information? Unless he was planning on compiling a database of Kairi-ism, then Sora really had no idea… why… he would need all this.

Unless.

"Oh—" Sora added, just as Roxas was thinking up his next question. He grinned, "And also, she loves outgoing guys."

Roxas' eyes blew open.

Sora nodded. Roxas probably would've fell over if not for the fact that he was trying to pretend that it didn't matter—but hell, of course it did! OUTGOING? Just how outgoing is outgoing for her? He knew for a fact that outgoing was not something he could put on his list of personality traits. All of a sudden, it felt like an anchor was sinking in the pit of his stomach, slowly dragging him down with it. He was devastated.

Sora noticed. _He does like her. I knew it. _

"Just how… outgoing… is outgoing?" Roxas asked, trying to act as if he really didn't care.

Sora's insides were smiling. "Well, her last boyfriend… Axel Xenisillas used to rock-climb." Roxas' heart valves were exploding, one by one. "But I'm not sure if he counts because he's older than her, so… well, you know how superficial girls are these days, they always go for older guys and stuff, right?"

"…r-right." Roxas nodded, slowly. "So… he doesn't count."

Sora smiled and shook his head. "No. Lucky you."

"Huh?"

"Um." He stopped smiling instantly. "I mean nothing."

Roxas tried to comfort himself, and tried to convince himself that Sora was still oblivious as to why he asked him that question. He left his house in a hurry, apologizing to his mom, and then quickly sped away in his car. "Of course he doesn't know, " he told himself, casually, even though his voice was shaky. "It was a completely objective question, with no emotional attachment whatsoever."

A pause.

"Well whatever," he mumbled. "So what if he knows… it doesn't matter." He continued. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter…" …

"That's rich." Sora sighed, sprawled comfortably on his bed. Nothing amused him more than Roxas' sudden visit and faster-than-usual disappearance. He figured with such a blatantly obvious question, that of course his five-second analysis had to be right. And this, above all, made him laugh. The fact that—okay, this was killing him beyond belief, he couldn't even think.

"Sora—" he shook a little and instantly sat up when his mom burst into his room. She found him with the most amused smile he'd ever had, and she was instantly worried. "What happened to Roxas? What did you tell him? Why is he gone?"

He couldn't believe she was asking that. _What does she mean 'why is he gone'? He doesn't even live here. _However, that simple fact refused to ruin the salsa music playing in his head and the fairies flitting about in utter bliss. He shrugged, "No idea." He told her, innocently.

"You liar." She sneered at him. "I hope you didn't tell him anything that you should be regretting for the rest of your life, because he's such a nice boy—"

"Of course not."

"What happened?"

"Why do you… always ask me things that have nothing to do with you at all—?"

"Hey. Kid. Talk or I'm taking _my_ car back."

Sora sighed and quickly tried to form some kind of sentence in his head that wouldn't make him laugh or choke, but still made sense in some kind of weird way. "Um." He began. "Roxas is… a Kairi fan-boy." He said it as calm as he knew how, but the fairies in his head were dropping down, one by one, laughing their lungs out. Oh, the amusement.

His mom beamed, clasping her hands together, as she rushed over to sit with him on the bed. Sora rolled his eyes; she was _such _a drama queen. He often wondered why he couldn't have a normal mom; one that was old, loved to knit, knew nothing about young kids and assumed their kid was a male prostitute. She came over and began to pet his head affectionately, which only scared him. "My God, that is too cute!" she gushed inwardly. She glanced over at Sora, whose eyes were blown up much bigger than usual and possessed such a shocked expression. She smiled, "So does she know? Does she? She doesn't know, does she? Huh?"

"… um…" Sora began slowly. "I don't think so…?"

His mom squealed and fell back on his bed. He slowly inched away from her. Before he decided he could get up, run, and still be able to keep his sanity, she sprung back up and stared at him, with a warm smile. "So where does this leave you?"

He blinked at her.

She smiled at him.

"What?"

"I know, you don't wanna answer it because I'm your mom and this is weird."

"… _what_?"

"But really, you should think about it."

"Think about _what_?" he asked. She stared at him, her eyes trying to burn holes into his head. It really just looked like she was attempting, very badly, to wink at him. He laughed, and shook his head slightly. "Okay, I get it. You think that all of a sudden, Roxas is gonna turn into frigging Superman and everyone's gonna love him because he's just so cool and whatever—okay, that's funny, really."

"What? I'm being honest." She gave a fake pout.

He grinned. "You seem to think this is like Armageddon or something. And it's not. And I'll tell you why, since you're so… interested in this," he cleared his throat. "He's a nice guy, sure. But he's no Axel… by no means whatsoever."

His mom raised an eyebrow at him. She pursed her lips disapprovingly and glared at him. "That sounds like something a jealous person would say."

"… but I always sound like that." He answered, with a casual shrug. "…you know what I think, you're over-analyzing this, and now everything just seems weird. You'll get over it. I have." And with that, he fell back on his bed.

She peered over at him for a moment, before creeping off his bed and slowly out of his room.

* * *

Happy happy joy joy. :D Once again, reviews would be oh so spiffy… and next chapter soon XDD 


	5. 005

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 5  
Take a shot to offset the pain to offset the shakes to offset the shot

It was kind of weird, because ever since he mentioned the whole ordeal with Axel and spewed out his soul in the compilation of Kairi-ism, Roxas almost found a reason to not stop by as often. When he did come by, it would be a long and tiresome event, as Miss Akela was fond of cooking extra, and setting up the guest room just in case the poor boy was too tired to drive home. But it definitely wasn't as often as it used to be, which only Sora found refreshing and disturbing at the same time. His mom didn't ask where he went to as often as she did before, and it almost seemed as if everything was lacking in its proper emotional factor. … maybe Roxas _was_ like Superman or something.

"I'm going downtown for awhile, okay?" Sora's mom popped into his room to find him still buried under the covers, not showing any signs of life at all. She sighed, rolling her eyes, "You can call me at my second number if you want… don't forget your keys if you're going anywhere."

No response.

She scoffed, crossing her arms. "And really—God could've at least given me a responsive son."

"I heard that." He croaked, tiredly.

She smiled, wryly, "Great. I'll be back." She said, turning towards the door. "Oh—" she paused a moment. "And Kairi's downstairs. She says she wants to ask you something."

Silence.

She grinned, and closed the door behind her. Sora lay in the same position for a while longer, until he realized falling back asleep was never gonna work. He glanced at his working clock and slowly peeled the massive covers off him, lying completely still and stoic. He hadn't been himself much since Roxas and his whole—_Think happy thoughts… I don't know why you're letting this bother you. I don't even know what's bothering you to begin with. Why are you being so weird? Stop acting gay. Just get changed and stop being a sappy bastard. _The last thing he needed to do was fight with his conscience. So, agreeing half-heartedly, he slid off his bed and quickly went through anything that wasn't related to his boxers to slip on and head downstairs.

"I can't believe you slept in on a national holiday." Kairi said the instant he got downstairs. He gave her a confused look and she could only shake her head. "Maybe if it was 11 or 12, I'd understand. But it's 3. That's beyond… " she trailed off for a moment, looking at him, anxiously. She gave him a worried look and asked, "… you okay?"

"What?" he asked, bluntly.

"You look sick."

"I'm just tired." He answered, just as fast. For some odd reason, she didn't seem to believe it. He had no idea why, either—he really was just tired. "Really, I'm fine, I'm just tired."

"… if you're sure." Kairi mumbled, crossing her arms, amiably. "Well anyway, I'm going downtown to buy discount stuff from the only back-end shops that are open—you wanna come with?" she asked, with subtle yet pleading eyes. "Roxas is in the car."

_Roxas… is in the car? _It seemed like that line alone was echoing tenfold in his head. His eyebrow twitched, irritably. There wasn't a certain reason as to why that happened, and it was weird. _What the hell is Roxas doing in the car? Why would she even tell me that? _He cleared his throat, and said slowly, "No thanks."

Kairi seemed depressed. Her jaw dropped open as she gawked at him, incredulously. He never gave up a chance to go backend shopping for weird things with her—it was like their special ritual. "First off," she began, her eyes still glossed over with concern. "You _are_ sick, aren't you? Whatever it is, I hope it's not serious or whatever. Secondly—what do you _mean_ 'no thanks'?" she asked, taking a step closer to peer at him, eerily. "We _always_ go shopping at backend stores on St. Mahina's Day, so you _have_ to come with me! … and Roxas wants to come too."

It was strange how she always had to add that in. "It's, um…" he sighed, slowly. "… I'm feeling a little… dead." _More than usual—please, like anyone's gonna believe that—_"I have… the flu or something, so… wouldn't wanna get Roxas sick or anything." _Or would you?_

"Oh." Kairi mumbled, downcast. She rushed over, gave him a hug and pet him on the head warmly. "That's actually really nice of you..." She said, awkwardly, giving him a confused look.

Sora said nothing, successfully avoiding her gaze.

"So you are sick." She said, stately, with a sigh. "Okay. Drink lots of orange juice. I'll buy you something." She waved to him and hurried out the door to Roxas in the driveway.

Sora sighed heavily and spun around to head back upstairs to his room. _When did I turn all bastard-like? Overnight? Crazy. _As he approached the staircase, he spotted someone's foot tapping irritably near the corner of the living room. _Odd, _he thought, peaking around the corner. He swung around the corner for a moment and instantly spotted—his mom, seated in a chair by the wall, legs crossed, eyes focused solely on him in a menacing fashion.

_Is she glaring at me?_ "… what happened?" Sora asked, quietly. "And—didn't you say you were leaving?"

"You told her you were _sick_!" she snapped, her eyes exploding suddenly. "_Sick_! Is that even a valid _excuse_? I can't _believe_ you told her you were sick! If this is how you always avoid girls, it's no wonder you've been single for almost forever!"

Sora sighed, "I'm going back to bed."

"Come back here!"

---

He had exactly X number of minutes until she came back out of the house, and there was a thousand things running through his head. What should he say to her? How long was the drive downtown? How much topics could he come up with in that amount of time, and how long would each conversation be? A minute? Two, maybe? He was panicking, in lamest terms. It almost made you wonder HOW IN THE HELL DID IT COME TO THIS ANYWAY? Clearly, dear Roxas was closer to having a panic attack than to say hi when she came back, so it wasn't obvious as to how he managed to ask her out that day anyway. He just figured that sentences more than five words were beginning to pay off.

Kairi would've said something absolutely different, though. She knew it was weird and almost a bit embarrassing—but yes… she felt somewhat sorry for him. "Poor guy chokes up at everything," she often told Namine. "The way you described him didn't seem like that at all."

Namine would just shrug. "Maybe the environment is getting to him. He says he doesn't mind the islands, but really—there's a reason not a lot of people come by here, and it's pretty obvious… the seclusion will drive you nuts."

"Oh," Kairi mumbled to herself. Her genuine concern found her talking to him for her own sanity, because she wanted to make sure he was okay. She would call him occasionally and invite him everywhere, just to make sure he wasn't always at home by himself—or with Sora. It was one thing to have him alone, stuck in his room all day, and another thing to have him bonding with Sora. One was enough. She figured he was better off hanging around her than him.

Roxas jumped slightly when he spotted Sora's front door open and Kairi walk out. He half expected Sora to be with her, and he was somewhat surprised when he didn't spot him at all. "Great," he mumbled to himself. "There goes my only other opportunity for decreased conversation…" He glanced out the window to his left for a second, and when he returned to his right, Kairi was already getting in the car. She had a slightly perturbed expression about her. Roxas stared at her, apprehensively, waiting for her to probably say something. She gave a heavy, somewhat melodramatic sigh, but said nothing. "… are you okay?" Roxas asked, quietly.

Another sigh. "Yep." … and that was it.

Roxas continued to look at her, so desperately wanting to embrace her in a hug, or perhaps tell her everything was okay… but his tongue was stuck in his throat and his hands were glued to the steering wheel. _Roxas, you are too cool. _He thought, mentally kicking himself for such a horribly wasted opportunity. He reached for the key in the ignition, but— "Hey Roxas," it was Kairi. He instantly turned to look at her again, and she glanced back at him, fishing for her phone in her bag. "I wouldn't wanna drive you all the way downtown if I didn't really have any money to buy anything… really." She gave a shy laugh, revealing a smile. "So we can go some other time, since my… bank card is upstairs, sick and depressed." She gestured towards the upstairs windows in Sora's house, where Roxas swore he spotted someone poking through the blinds.

"Well—" He stopped a moment… and rethought what he was going to say. He couldn't remember; only that it was along the lines of 'you can abuse my bank card, I don't care!' _Why do I always lose all ability to think? _He sighed. "So… where to?"

"We can go pick up Namine first, and then I wanna visit Riku… just to make sure he's not dead." She said, holding her phone to her ear.

Roxas only managed to glance at her from the corner of his eye as he drove, reluctantly, down the road. He didn't necessarily mind picking up Namine, but it would be weird if all of a sudden, they showed up in Riku's living room after he hadn't seen him for close to a month. And the two of them weren't necessarily close. And yet, he couldn't help but think that perhaps this was just Kairi's odd, yet inconspicuous way of trying to ditch him amongst a group of guys he didn't really know—

"Hey Namine," Kairi waved to her as she headed down the walkway of her house and into the backseat of Roxas' car. She waved back, and gave Roxas an odd pat on the shoulder as she got in.

—maybe if he was more closely acquainted with them, it wouldn't be so weird. It was already bad enough trying to not seem as if he stuck out. He was already so unlike everyone else that it was hard not to tell. And plus, it's not like Destiny Islands was a huge, incomprehensibly massive island. You might not know everyone, but you know someone who knows someone who knows someone else. It was like an odd chain of being that he clearly wasn't an integrated part of—

"I think it's 26… on that side." Kairi said, pointing down the road to the left. "I forgot… just look for whichever house has his car. Do you remember how it looks like?"

"Is he even picking up?" Namine asked, peering out onto the street. "I'll call him, one second." Within a moment, she had her phone out and glued to her ear, and she was speaking with her 'eloquent' voice. "Hello Riku." She beamed. "Is it 26 or 28? … yes, we're outside." She paused a moment and tapped Roxas on the shoulder. "He said drive around the front, you'll see him."

After circling the block twice, Roxas stopped dead by the driveway as he spotted what seemed to be a six-foot bundle of fluff standing on the porch of number 26 with something clamped to its ear. Roxas took it immediately to be a phone, and he pointed it out to both Kairi and Namine, who sceptically, exchanged confused looks with each other. It wasn't until the bundle of fluff waved what seemed to be a hand towards them, gesturing for them to come in.

"Wow." Kairi mumbled, approaching the disgruntled Riku on the porch. "Are… uh…" she cleared her throat. "What's with all this? It's not really anywhere close to being fall yet."

"Caught a cold." He coughed, hoarsely. They looked on at him a while longer, bundled in an insane amount of blankets. He sighed, rolling his eyes, and ushered them inside.

For a first year university student, his townhouse-style dorm was actually pretty well composed. There was room to walk, and the sofa—which they supposed he'd been sleeping on for the past few weeks—was neatly stacked with pillows and blankets. The kitchen was wonderfully clean, probably because it hadn't been touched. And the only things on his table were his laptop and a stack of books, papers and random writing tools. He collapsed on the sofa, turning a tired eye towards them. He didn't say anything.

"… so life's been good, has it?" Kairi asked, sporadically, brushing off a pile of blankets on the chair opposite him to sit down. "Besides the cold."

"No," he gave a slight cough and sat up instantly. "I haven't been out of my house for a while because one of my profs died, so we got a week's worth of filler work—" at this, he pointed to the stack of papers beside his laptop. "Filler work." He said, dully. "Things should resume as usual in about another week and a half, but until then, it's filler work—" a cough. "—plus I'm sick and I miss my bed."

"That's cute." Namine smiled, clasping her hands together, affectionately. She looked at Kairi, smiling at her also, but Kairi just gave her a blank look. It was only Roxas that returned her smile, somewhat out of fear. "You can come home in a few weeks, can't you? You have vacation and all, right?"

He nodded briefly and then threw his head back in exhaustion. "Ravage my kitchen if you want." He croaked a final time.

Kairi grinned and got up, instantly rushing to the kitchen and prying open the fridge. And of course, Roxas kept throwing frequent glances at her. Namine noticed, as he was sitting across from her, but she didn't think much of it. As Kairi flitted amongst the kitchen in a happy fashion, he couldn't help but notice her sudden change of emotions as soon as she spotted something in the doorway. It was gradual, but fast, and very obvious. She turned around in all blissful glory of having been able to ravage someone else's kitchen, and then… a look of subtle shock swept across her features like a strong wind.

Roxas followed her gaze slowly to the doorway. There was a tall, dark, and very dashing man standing there, with bold red hair falling amongst his elegant and broad shoulders. He had a tired gaze about his features and Roxas was pretty sure that he wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings as he walked in, kicked his shoes off, and trudging past the living room towards the staircase. "Hi Riku," he said, absently. "And friends." He added, as he approached the staircase, and soon disappeared up the stairs.

Namine looked at Riku—who didn't appear to have heard anything—and then at Roxas, who peered around at the staircase where the man had left. "Who was that?" he asked, quietly.

Before Namine could answer, she heard the fridge slam shut behind her and turned to see Kairi stuffing whatever she had pulled out of it into her mouth. Namine looked at her and gave her a confused look, but Kairi only shrugged, continuing to pop bits of whatever she could find in her mouth.

"Kairi," Namine whispered, carefully. "Do you… wanna go, maybe?"

"Why?" Kairi asked, bluntly, reaching for her drink. "This… I think it's pie… well whatever, it's really good." She smiled at her, heading back to the fridge. "Besides, since when do I ever pass up a chance to raid someone else's kitchen?"

"Um." Roxas began shortly, catching Namine's attention. "Who was that…?" he asked again.

Before Namine could answer again, there were quiet footsteps trailing down the staircase and pretty soon, the red-haired man was back with a look of interest as he poked his head around the corner wall. Roxas couldn't help but stare at him; he was just so very extravagant… and his eyes were mesmerizing.

… _what the hell is wrong with you?_ Roxas cringed and shook his head slowly. _Did you actually just say that about a guy? Have we forgotten our whole mission statement, here?_

Kairi looked up momentarily from her pie-eating extravaganza and locked eyes with the man. She didn't smile at him or glare at him; she turned back to her pie. After a moment, she spoke up, "This is yours, isn't it?"

Roxas and Namine both snapped their attention to the man at the staircase. He nodded and gave a shrug, "You can have it. I have everything else of yours, after all."

"I know. Including my slippers." Kairi replied, absently. She took a quick glance at his feet, instantly spotted the pink that clashed horribly with his hair, and headed back to the fridge. She reached for a water bottle and walked over to the chair where her bag and her phone were.

She stuffed her phone into her bag and was about to head to the door, when the man walked down the steps and stood on the other side of the railing, his hands folded across his chest. "I was going to call you, you know."

Kairi stopped by the doorway as she slipped on her sandals and turned to look at him. "I know. Next week, right?"

He looked as if he was going to say something else, but instead, he nodded slowly and replied with a certain uncertainty, "Yeah… next week."

* * *

End of chapter 5:D … yeah this was kinda long, it's okay I know . ; Review and I'll continue? ... once again, another failed attempt at being enticing XD My bad. I'm working on it :x

To those that haaaaave been reviewing though, thanks so much:D I appreciate it a lot... a lot, a lot :D


	6. 006

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 6  
Well, I'm afraid that I may have faked it…

After what seemed like a crash-course in drink mixing, the blond finally came back with two large glasses embroidered with the crest of the bar. Namine sighed and rolled her eyes, shutting them momentarily, as the man continued to whisk up drinks and pour them each respectively into their glasses. This only took another… 10 minutes, give or take a second or two. Finally, he grinned widely, absolutely thrilled with the outcome. "2 Breeze coolers. One for the lovely lady—" he set a glass down in front of Namine. "—and… for her friend." He pushed one towards Roxas, half as enthusiastically as he had earlier, and he turned to Namine with a giant smile on his face.

She took the drink and flashed him a weak smile. "Thank you, Demyx."

"Never a problem." He replied with a bright nod.

"See you later." Namine said, less than hopefully, and she ushered Roxas over to a table in the corner where they were far away from Demyx's prying eyes. "He's so annoying sometimes." Namine mumbled bitterly, sipping on her drink.

"I don't get you at all." Roxas told her. "You snub _everyone_."

"No I don't—"

"Yes, you do." He said, taking a sip of his cooler. "Everyone except Sora, of course—" Namine gasped, nearly choking on her drink. "—but that's not important right now." Namine massaged her chest slowly, flashing a short glare at Roxas. "—can I ask you a question?"

Namine rolled her eyes and crossed her legs. "Possibly." She shrugged.

"It's about… last week. When we went to visit Riku, you remember?" he set down his drink, and leaned in a bit closer so no one else would hear him. "You never ever did tell me… who that guy was."

Namine cleared her throat and looked around suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"

This time, Roxas was the one who cleared his throat awkwardly. He folded his hands together and looked down at them in his lap. "No reason. Uh… it's just—" he nodded quickly. "—remember, you asked Kairi if she wanted to leave and all? I was just wondering, uh… well, yeah." He stuttered awkwardly, and then looked away.

"Oh." Namine nodded. Roxas gave a sigh of relief; at least she didn't find his random questions too suspicious or weird for that matter. Namine took a brief sip of her drink and told him, "That was Axel. Uh… did I ever mention him to you?"

"I know—" _all about him anyway._ Roxas bit his tongue and shook his head slightly. "—uh… who he is."

Namine blinked at him. "So… why'd you ask?"

Roxas choked. He quickly took a swig of his drink, finishing off the majority of it out of pure shock, and calmed down a moment. "Uh," he began, shortly. "… you know, you've been unnecessarily… _weird_ this whole day. … another failed call to Sora, huh?"

Namine bit her bottom lip and gave an aggravated sigh. She shook her head slowly. "He just wasn't picking up, that's all."

---

"Sora! Your phone has been ringing for _an hour_!"

"I know, I'll be right there, one second."

The same conversation had been going on for the majority of the day. It was the first day of Autumn Break (Destiny Islands was a free spirit and to contain it within endless working days wasn't good for the people). Miss Akela was rushing around the house, preparing for some form of "banquet thing" that the union always put on every year. Sora was lying on the sofa downstairs, buried amidst pillows and blankets, watching old movies with a bowl of popcorn. No matter how many times he said he'd get his phone, he never moved. And although it thoroughly bothered Miss Akela, anything she threw at him only bounced right off the covers and slid on the ground.

Sora heard his mom scream from somewhere upstairs as he heard his phone go off. He glanced at the staircase and then reached for a handful of popcorn. "Who keeps calling me so often anyway?" he mumbled as he set down the popcorn bowl. "Am I really that cool that people just randomly call me for hours at a time or do they have nothing else to do?"

His ring tone seemed to be growing louder as the moments passed, and soon he found his mom wandering down the stairs in a summer dress, carrying her purse, shoes—and his cell, rather tightly, in her grasp. She walked over to him, placed it on his forehead, and headed into the kitchen without taking another look at him.

His phone stopped ringing the second he picked it off his head. He checked the messages, amiably hoping to find a recollection of everything he ignored that day, and then the "missed" calls… Namine, Namine, Namine, Kairi, Riku, Riku, Kairi, Riku… Roxas. He cringed and dropped his phone on the floor, throwing the covers back over his head. For some reason, the mention of Roxas' name made him feel sick and disturbed. He'd been lying in the same spot trying to figure out exactly why… _it's because Kairi keeps mentioning him, and it's annoying. She never stops talking about Roxas and it's sickening. That's why it's bothering you. Right? I mean, come on, at least Axel… as much of a bastard as he could've been, but even he was a better specimen for late-night talk. I mean, this is Roxas we're, unfortunately, talking about. He's… short, and… has annoying blond hair. …plus your mom seems to love him and he, uh… has the same eye colour as you. See? There you go, genius. That's why he bothers you so much. End of story. Now go, the TV calls. _

His phone rang. His mom glared at him from across the kitchen. "You gonna get that?" she asked, sharply.

"I don't want to," he scoffed, childishly, disappearing under the covers. He heard his mom approach the sofa slowly, and he clung to the covers tightly. "Don't throw the covers off—I'm only wearing my boxers and it's cold _out there_—"

"Sora," she began, tiredly. "Really, I know you're sick and you feel horrible—for some unexplained reason—but if you don't pick that phone up right now, I'm disposing of it."

Sora sighed and stuck his hand out from under the covers to feel for the phone on the floor somewhere. He grasped the phone and flipped it open reluctantly, pasting it to his ear. "Hello?" he droned, melodramatically.

"You!" the voice yelled on the other line. Sora cringed. "You! WHAT THE _HELL_ IS WRONG WITH YOU! My God! Learn to pick up the phone sometimes!"

"Oww." Sora mumbled, moving the phone away from his ear a little. "Riku?"

"WELL I'M GLAD YOU STILL REMEMBER ME—!"

"I'm glad you're not sick and miserable anymore."

"Yeah, well…" Riku's sudden rage seemed to have toned down or died altogether. He cleared his throat and replied, awkwardly, "… sounds like you are… a little." A pause. "Kairi told me."

"She's finally done talking about Roxas, is she?"

"Yeah, uh…" Riku's voice trailed off. Thank God they were talking over the phone, otherwise Sora would've seen the "confuzzled" expression Riku was giving him. It was probably channelling over the phone. "… you okay?"

"What?"

"You sound really bitter."

"I'm not bitter."

"Well, you just don't sound good… yeah, I guess you're pretty sick, then."

Sora rolled his eyes. "I guess so. I feel like the lowest level of shit you can ever possibly imagine."

"Sucks." Riku shook his head. "We were all gonna go out tomorrow, so… give me a call if you get better, okay?"

"Because it happens overnight."

"Shut it. Just call, okay?"

"Yeah." The both of them hung up. Sora slipped his phone back on the floor from under the covers and peeled the covers off his head slowly. He jumped a little when he noticed his mom, standing over him, looking down at him oddly. "W-what are you still doing here?" he asked, shakily.

"I'm amazed." She said with a sigh, ignoring what he said. "I'm amazed at how far you actually went with this… staying home during vacation in nothing but your boxers watching old episodes of Xena. I'm amazed at how well you can avoid people. You must teach me one day so I can actually refuse these stupid yearly banquets." Sora figured she was joking, but she looked absolutely serious. She sighed, crossing her arms and brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Every year, it's… 'oh, Serina, you must come this year, there's male strippers—'" Sora's eyes blew open. "—but it's not worth it, trust me."

"… I bet it's not."

"Well." She began with a slight smile. "Go get changed into something, okay? I'm going—I'll be back later tonight or early tomorrow." She slipped on her shoes and rushed to the door, calling the usual—'call me if you need anything, don't cook anything if you know you're tired, lock the doors and answer your phone!', and within a few minutes, she was gone.

The house was silent.

---

She hoped he was home.

She had to catch her breath on his front step, because she couldn't form a proper sentence, let alone talk. It had been a long day, after all.

She left home, telling her parents she was going to meet up with a few people, and she left downtown. She eventually met up with Riku, and the two of them went window shopping for close to… forever. It seems money ran dry for both of them. Then, they found Namine and Roxas somewhere in a bar, and subliminally got them to buy her and Riku drinks.

"Oh," she told Roxas in between the sips of her drink. He looked up at her instantly with his bright blue eyes and waited. She smiled, "I'm really sorry… about completely ditching you for Riku's last week."

"What?" Riku asked, absently.

"Oh," Roxas stuttered, nervously. "It's… d-don't worry about it."

"Hey Kairi," Namine interrupted with a smile. "We're going down to Roxas' later. So, uh… call Sora and ask him to come, okay?" she said the latter rather quickly.

Kairi laughed. "You tell him yourself—"

"I would, but he's not picking up! Honest, he's not."

Kairi tried his number, and true to Namine's word, there was no answer. Riku tried as well; nothing. In conclusion, they wondered if he was okay, but were much too drugged from Demyx's shakes to get enough energy to go over and see him. Dearest Demyx, by order of his boss, had to kick them out—but not before making sure Namine knew that this shouldn't daunt their relationship—and so the four of them were left wandering the streets aimlessly, generally without money.

Kairi's phone rang. Paying no real attention to it, she flipped it open and held the phone to her ear. "Hello?" she said.

"Hey." The voice replied. Kairi instantly froze when she heard him speak. Her footsteps slowed to a careful stop. The others turned back to her, confused. Roxas could only examine her worried expression and hope that everything was okay. As she continued to whisper on the phone secretly as if the others could not hear her, Roxas kept telling himself that the second she got off the phone, he would ask if everything was okay. As sad as it seemed, he recited in his head every way in which he could say "is everything okay?"

"Sorry guys," Kairi whispered suddenly. "But uh… I have to go." She gave a nervous chuckle. "I'll see you later, though, at Roxas' right?"

Roxas nodded quickly. Before anyone could say anything to her, she was off in the other direction, the phone still clasped to her ear. Roxas figured she was talking to Sora or something… but it wasn't him. It was Axel. He had told her he'd call, and he said even though he was busy, he wanted to talk to her. Kairi wandered aimlessly throughout the town, smiling sweetly at the thought of Axel's presence on the line. She did miss talking to him, although she was sure… she could never have the same kind of feelings for him anymore.

It was well past 7 when she realized that she was still on the phone. Axel said he had to go, which only brought out the bitterness in Kairi's heart. She didn't want to tell him that she missed talking to him. It was more or less a mutual agreement between the both of them. They knew what the other was thinking, but it wasn't necessary to say anything. She hung up, feeling lonely again. If she'd told Namine, she probably wouldn't have let her talk to him and in a way, Kairi regretted having that kind of an option. She flipped open her phone, dialled Roxas' number—and waited.

Within a moment, Kairi was running towards Sora's house.

This is what she had figured out in a total of two minutes: she was supposed to be at Roxas' house by now, oh shit, she'd better call him and tell him she was still coming, but oh shit, her phone just died in mid-dial, her dad probably never paid her phone bill, oh shit, where's the closest phone from here?

She knocked twice on the door, and then rang the doorbell. She was surprised to hear activity in the house, along with the Xena theme song blasting from a TV far away. She figured that if Sora wasn't answering his phone, he probably wasn't home or he was dead asleep or something. She waited a moment, and then the door swung open revealing a fully clothed, relatively healthy-looking Sora. The two of them just stared at each other.

Kairi cleared her throat and was the first to drop her gaze. She all of a sudden felt very uneasy. His look was very daunting, but at the same time, he seemed a bit concerned for her sudden distant behaviour. He didn't say anything. She spoke first. "… can I use your phone?"

He seemed somewhat confused, but he pushed open the door anyway to let her in. She gave him a weak smile and scurried past him into the house.

"Phone died?" he asked the instant she dug up the phone from underneath a pile of papers. She turned around to see him sitting amidst a pile of blankets with a bowl of popcorn snug in his arms. He smiled at her a moment, and her uneasiness melted away. _What's wrong with me anyway?_ _It's just Sora after all. _She thought.

Kairi sighed and ignored him, "Randomly, yes. And you—" she glared at him."—how come you weren't picking up? We were actually supposed to go to Roxas' today. I have to call him and tell him I didn't forget…" she mumbled, picking up the receiver and holding it to her ear.

Sora let out a sigh. He popped a handful of popcorn in his mouth, nearly choked, and let his eyes graze freely over the TV where the Xena marathon was continuing. He felt horrible. … _God, kid, what's wrong now? Haven't we been through this a thousand times before? Let. It. Go. _He slowly set down the popcorn bowl and turned to stare at Kairi while she waited on the line. … _really. How does it make you feel that she's on the phone right now—your phone, by the way—calling Roxas? … listen to yourself, you shouldn't feel anything, just sit there and watch Xena and shut your face. _

… _but wait. _

"H-hey Kairi—"

"Shush." She poked down the switch hook and waited for the line to cut. "For some reason, he's not picking up." She redialled the number. "Hey, if you're feeling better, you should come too. I know you're not really sick, you just need an excuse to watch Xena all day."

Sora switched off the TV, and resumed staring at her.

He heard the dial tone… once…

… twice…

… three times. He could practically see Roxas reaching for the phone. And for some reason…

… this, beyond all things, pissed the hell out of him.

Before he knew it, his hand passed over the switch hook and the line went dead. Kairi looked over at him, but he didn't look at her. His expression was blank, his head felt like it was going to explode, and he told her, "Don't go."

_

* * *

_

Uh, finally. XD Umm… next chapter… soon. :D Please review if you liked it! I'll post faster? Yes, because it's everyone's highlight. XDD;;

I'm also experimenting with summaries:D So ignore if you see it switching back and forth like 3 times a week or whatever XD; I have reasons :D


	7. 007

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 7  
…and I wouldn't be caught dead in this place

The phone was ringing.

"Coming, coming…" Roxas mumbled, rushing off the sofa to get to the phone. Namine had been hovering over it weirdly the whole time, and when Roxas approached her, she looked close to a deer caught in headlights. Roxas noticed it was Sora's home number flashing on the caller ID, which pretty much explained Namine's expression. She kept whispering 'pick it up!' frantically as she leered over the phone.

As Roxas reached for the phone, it went silent. "Huh?" he gasped, picking up the phone and bringing it to his ear. "I swear…" the phone was dead completely. He set the receiver back down, and stared at the phone oddly. "… that's weird."

"He hung up? What?" Namine gawked at the phone. "It's a lie!"

"Is it?" Roxas said, with a sarcastic roll of his eyes.

Namine instantly flung her hands on the phone and picked it up, holding the receiver to her ear in a desperate manner. Roxas ignored her. He checked the clock on the wall; it was close to 9. He swore Kairi said she'd show up… _maybe she forgot. _He sighed. _But she promised she'd show up, right? _He looked towards the clock again and let out another sigh as the seconds passed.

He wondered if something came up…

---

She blinked at him.

He didn't look at her.

She swung her head around in his line of vision.

He glanced at her, but looked away.

"What?" he asked, bluntly.

"What do you mean _what?_ W-what… did you just say?"

"I said don't go."

She blinked at him.

He gave her an odd look. "Why?"

She gasped, and looked down at her hands. "What… do you mean _why_? It's just… w-why would you… say that to me…?"

He blinked at her. "… because." He began, stubbornly, glancing away for a moment. "B-because… I want you to stay with me. It's lonely being at home watching… Xena… by yourself." He added, testily.

Kairi stared at him, somewhat vacant, somewhat lost. She was so sure that when he said that, he actually meant it… differently. She sighed, folding her arms across her chest. "Okay."

"… okay?" Sora gave her a weird look. _You hear that? She said okay. She'd rather hang around you than Roxas, okay. Now, let it go. _

"Okay." Kairi shrugged. She grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the sofa. She switched the TV back on amidst a Xena episode. She sighed again, somewhat melodramatically, which Sora noticed. He was turned and fully staring at her, which he always did when he was trying to read her facial expressions. Kairi gave a slight smile and another sigh, which was becoming routine. "Don't think much of it… it's just that I thought—" _What exactly were you thinking, you crazy child? You'd be wise not to say anything, because we all know how your weird, soap-opera-like mind works and this is weird enough, okay. _She bit down on her tongue instantly and glanced at him with a failed attempt at being inconspicuous.

Sora raised his eyebrow at her. "What?"

Kairi smiled, a very nervous smile. "N-nothing."

He said nothing.

She said nothing.

Suddenly, staring at your hands became very fashionable.

---

When she woke up, the house smelled most profoundly of blueberry muffins.

She cracked her eyes open slowly to take in her surroundings. She was buried in a pile of blankets, lying ever-so-still on the same sofa she last remembered. The TV was off, but she heard rustling in the kitchen to her left. Slowly sitting up, she peeked carefully over the arm of the chair and spotted Ms. Akela rushing around the kitchen in an apron. She spotted her and instantly grinned, wiping her hands on her apron and scurrying over to the sofa to join her.

Kairi blinked at her.

She just smiled. "Morning."

"… morning." Kairi replied, slowly. She glanced at the staircase beyond the wall and what she could catch of the front hall. "How…" she began, tiredly. "… how long have I been here?"

"You tell me." Ms. Akela grinned, slyly. Kairi's throat went dry. Neither of them said anything.

"I should probably leave." Kairi said, quickly, getting to her feet and ruffling her hair about her shoulders. "It's, um—I'm pretty sure my parents are wondering what happened to me—"

"I called them already." She grinned once more. "I told them, word-for-word, that you and my son passed out on my sofa at some odd hour of the morning."

Kairi sighed heavily. _I think I'm gonna be sick. _Ms. Akela only winked at her. Kairi said nothing.

It wasn't as easy as it seemed to randomly sneak out of Sora's house unnoticed. Ms. Akela was like a schoolgirl herself, and she loved to sit and talk with anyone 18 years her junior. Sometimes she would envy Sora for having someone like her as a mom… but more often than not, she was happy she didn't have to sit around explaining every detail of her life to her parents.

"I'm gonna go." Kairi nodded, in between a blueberry muffin. Ms. Akela's expression changed drastically from one of neutral bliss to pure depression. "Uh—" Kairi began quickly. "I, um—I promised my parents I would do something for them. And, uh, it's late so I better go anyway." She slowly got up from her seat at the breakfast table, pushing her chair in behind her. "Thanks for the muffin." She said absently, and rushed to the door.

"And _where_ have you been?" She stopped dead in her tracks, almost tripping over her own feet, as soon as she heard the shrill cry of her friend from somewhere in the restaurant. She had managed to head home, inform her parents of the real reason for her disappearance, and then run halfway across town looking for Selphie or Namine—for her safety, Namine probably wasn't the best choice—to make sure they didn't get the wrong idea about yesterday. She didn't ditch them on purpose last night anyway—

"Ditching us on purpose, huh?" Selphie called again from where she was sitting, this time even louder than she had earlier. Kairi rushed over to her, hissed a quick "shut up!", and sat down across from her at the table. Selphie raised an eyebrow at her, crossed her arms, and leaned back disapprovingly in her seat. "What's going on?"

Kairi opened her mouth to speak, but she realized she had no idea what she would tell her first. _Well—first—okay I was supposed—and then whatever—but then he said—and I was all—wait—no—that never happened—anyway— _She pursed her lips tightly and shook her head.

"Well," Selphie spoke up, haughtily. "Last night we were at Roxas' place and I talked to him—" she paused a moment to flash a quick grin. "—he mentioned you stopping by, but it was close to twelve and you didn't call. So I called your house—no one. I called your cell—it wasn't in service." She rolled her eyes. "I called your house again, your dad said if anything, you were probably at Sora's."

Kairi gasped. "Yeah—about that—"

"And _then_," Selphie added, talking over her. "I called Sora's cell—nothing. I called Sora's house—nothing. So we're all pretty confused as to where the hell you really were. Riku had no idea either. Well." She cleared her throat. "This morning, I call your house again and your parents tell me—word for word—that Sora's mom called and said that… 'you and him had passed out on his sofa at some odd hour of the morning'."

"Well, you see—"

"I don't even wanna hear what excuse you have for that." Selphie told her, narrowing her eyes at her. "Fact. You and Sora fell asleep _together_ on his sofa… doing _what?_"

"It's—"

"Whatever, Kairi." Selphie scoffed. "Just know, Namine wants you dead and Roxas—"

"Roxas—my God, I have to call him—"

"Yes well, he's… feeling horrible." Selphie gave a slight sniff and looked away for a moment. "He doesn't know you ditched him to spend the night with Sora—"

"Okay, that's not true—"

"What the hell, Kairi?" she blinked at her. "Can you kind of explain what just happened? Because I'm confused."

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you learned to shut your face once in awhile." She ignored Selphie's momentary gasp and continued. "Axel called me. I talked to him for a really long time. And then, my phone died. Between a payphone, my house, Roxas' house and Sora's house—magically, Sora's house was closer. Isn't it strange how that always happens? Okay, so I show up, ask to use his phone, telling him I have to call Roxas and whatever else. He's still being an emotional, depressed bastard so, um—okay, well and then—uh…" she paused a moment to think, clearly causing Selphie to flash her a few confused looks. "… well… I wanted to stay with him, I guess." She mumbled, clasping her hands together in her lap, fully aware her story on a whole made no psychological sense whatsoever.

"Really? Even after you promised _my_ Roxas that you'd come over and everything?" Selphie leered over at her from across the table.

"It's…" she began slowly. She didn't know exactly how to tell her… and she had no idea what she wanted to say to begin with. _It's just… when he told me yesterday that he didn't want me to leave… it was strange. I don't know what I was thinking…or if I was even thinking at all. _She looked at Selphie, who only gazed at her menacingly. Kairi sighed. _She wouldn't understand._ "… so here's what really happened." She said, monotonously. "We started talking about Xena, and then there was a Xena marathon, so I stayed over. Happy?"

Selphie gasped, incredulously. "You ditched us for Xena?"

Kairi shrugged, bluntly. "… it's a good show."

* * *

End of chapter 7 :DD Review if you liked it! I need my motivation. And. It's nice to hear what people have to say ;; I'm aware this chapter was short, so don't attack me .. And I'm also aware this is almost kinda late, depending on what you think is late ;; But believe me, I've been trying to upload this for a loooon time and then what happened-- (insert BS here) --so really, I love you all :D 

Chapter 8 soon :D

By the way, chapter 6 and 7's titles are the same line from a P!ATD song... called "But It's Better If You Do"... I think o.o;; Well whatever :D


	8. 008

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 8  
Do something about the dead congregation, will you?

He let out a sigh. His finger was carefully wrapped around the straw protruding swiftly from his tall glass. He stirred the drink irritably only glancing up momentarily. The lighting in the bar was relatively dim, which, lucky for him, did a decent enough job hiding his subtle anguish. He sighed again, this time heavier than the first, and pushed the drink slowly towards his mouth. Slowly, he clenched the straw between his teeth—and sighed again.

"Honestly dude, let it go."

He shook a little and looked up at the man standing on the other side of the bar. He hadn't noticed but the charismatic bartender Demyx was leaned over towards him with an expression that mirrored his own. Roxas pushed his drink away from him slowly and stammered, "H-huh?"

"Roxas, is it?" Demyx asked him, straightening his posture and stretching his arms. After Roxas gave a slow but sure nod, he shrugged. "I don't know why you're being so emo, but please, don't. Your life can't be as bad as mine right now. I'm failing everything and it's not even midterms yet."

"I'm okay." Roxas spoke up, dully. "Really, I am. I'm just tired."

"Stayed up late, huh?" Demyx inquired, with a sly grin. "Same with me! Man, I didn't think I'd be able to come to work today. You know—never stay up late studying anthropologists' theories with a cup of hard brewed liquor. I tell you, it does a serious toll on your system, for real." He rolled his eyes.

Roxas kept quiet.

"Dude, if you need advice, just ask me." He nodded, crossing his arms. "I'd help you out because you're Namine's friend—and holy shit is she ever hot." He paused for a moment and shut his eyes briefly, engulfed in his thoughts.

Roxas cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to his lap quickly. Demyx noticed and tapped the counter in front of him to get his attention. Roxas' eyes shot back up. Demyx grinned, "So. Tell me. I'm a bit curious as to why my future wife's friend is seemingly tired. Hey—I've been there. I know the feeling. And this—" he clutched Roxas' cheek between his two fingers and smiled at him. "—this isn't just 'yo, I'm tired'. This is like 'I just got shafted'."

Demyx was such an animated person.

Roxas sighed, backing away from Demyx's grasp. "I—uh, it's nothing, really." He massaged his face tiredly. "Really, I'm just tired—"

"It's a girl, isn't it?"

Roxas instantly shut up, his throat growing dry. He didn't mean to look like a deer caught in headlights, but he probably did at that time. Demyx smirked, crossing his arms. "What's her name?"

Roxas shook his head.

"Someone I know?" he inquired, cocking his head to the side. "Is it…" he paused a moment and then lowered his eyes at Roxas, darkly. "It's not Namine, is it?"

Roxas shook his head again. Demyx beamed. Before he could speak again, Roxas spoke up, stuttering, "It's a long story."

"I'm on a long shift, dude."

Roxas groaned and dropped his head. There was no way he was gonna be able to lie his way out of this, especially with Demyx's unnecessary way of talking you up. In that sense, he was a pretty good candidate for the social drinking scene, but oh how Roxas wanted to run. He looked to the door for a brief second and then presumed to let his eyes graze slowly over the barren counter-top. "I actually just met her a while ago, at the end of summer." He ignored Demyx's random 'aaah!'s and continued. "She's really nice… and really sweet… and pretty. …uh. I-I don't know, I like her and stuff." He shifted his eyes nervously around the bar. "B-but, she's really good friends with this… other guy. And… okay, I admit it bothered me a little, but I could never really be jealous of him. They're like brother and sister and stuff."

"Whoa, whoa—" Demyx held up a finger to silence the jittery Roxas. "First things first: guys and girls aren't ever brother and sister unless they're _really_ brother and sister. Otherwise, any imitation you see is a fake. Secondly—" he leaned towards Roxas and peered at him oddly. "—you're not talking about Kairi and Sora, are you?"

Roxas said nothing. It felt as if a brick had landed snugly on his head after a long, painful drop down from heaven. The gods were waving their fingers at him angrily, going 'tsk tsk' and giving him spiteful looks. His head was spinning and there was a distinct buzzing in his ears that he couldn't seem to ignore.

Demyx didn't notice the blank look that came across Roxas' face and he continued to speak, sinking the brick deeper into Roxas' being. "Because really, those two have been close for… ever." He paused a moment to think. "They're the exception, I think. They might as well be related, for real."

"… o-oh." Roxas stuttered quietly. He reached for his drink quickly and took a fast swig of it, nearly choking. He massaged his chest quickly. "Uh… w-well."

"Well?" Demyx repeated quite loudly, leaning closer to him. "Well? Are you—is it really Kairi—dude, you're not serious, are you?"

"Well." Roxas replied, simply. "… well." He finished off the rest of his drink, leaving Demyx in his attempt to pry an answer from his dreary eyes. _Well… someone should've told me never to fall in love with a girl whose best friend is a guy. … and especially if he's someone she likes… kinda. … God, Roxas, listen to yourself. You told yourself you wouldn't care much about the whole… not showing up thing. I mean—what are you even moping about still? Just… learn to let it go sometimes. _"Can I have another one of these?" he asked pointing to the glass.

Demyx gave him a questioning look and took the glass, heading off to the back.

Roxas heard the door chimes go off somewhere near the entrance, but he didn't turn around. Sitting in a bar with Namine's number one fan wasn't helping his self-esteem much at all. It was almost like—_so what does it mean to you, exactly, that she said she'd stop by and then the next morning you find out she fell asleep on Sora's sofa… WITH him? … nothing. It means nothing. It's unimportant—_he felt someone brush by him to sit in the seat next to him, but he didn't look over. Just from the bright reflection on the dark countertop, he could tell it was Namine.

Demyx returned with the glass in hand and nearly dropped it the instant he spotted Namine beside Roxas. He had to clasp the glass with both his hands to make sure it didn't accidentally slip. When he got to the bar front, he set the drink down in front of Namine and smiled at her.

"Thanks." Namine mumbled, reaching for the drink and finishing it wholly in front of poor, tormented Roxas.

_Fine. Take my refuge and swallow it whole. _Roxas sighed and rested his head down on the bar top.

"Roxas," Namine spoke up suddenly, turning away from Demyx. "I need to ask you a question. A real, serious question. Just one—because I don't want this to turn into some extreme sob-fest because I really—all my questions are basically the same thing."

"Shoot." Roxas mumbled.

Namine paused a moment and bit down on her lower lip apprehensively. She hummed awhile to herself and stared at her fingers. Roxas waited awhile longer, hoping that she would decide to talk first. He closed his eyes for a second and she tapped him on the shoulder timidly. "Okay, I'm ready…" she took a deep breath as he turned to her. "… so…" another deep breath. "… do you think this is fate?"

Roxas blinked at her.

Namine stared at him.

"… what?" Roxas asked.

"Yes it is." They both turned to see Demyx beaming brightly at Namine. She gave him a weak smile and then resumed ignoring him.

"… is what fate?" Roxas inquired again. "The whole… yesterday…?"

Namine nodded quickly. "It's like coincidence or something, right? All I want to know is if it was intentional or not. I mean, her phone died and everything—and then—oh, but then wouldn't she have called from Sora's then? What do you think?"

"It… is fate." Roxas nodded. "It's unexplainable… it's… unfair."

There was silence for a while and then Namine scoffed and slapped him in the shoulder. "So depressing, so depressing." She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, edgily. "If you told me you were coming here to drink and pass the time, you should've called me. I would've come with you." Demyx shot Roxas an angry glare, but neither of them said anything. "I'm not thinking much of it, though…" Namine sighed. "Not anymore, anyway. I mean… she's always been unnecessarily lucky—falling asleep on guys' beds inconspicuously and, as she calls it, 'unintentionally'. I still have nothing against her." A pause. "I'll be next."

---

His eyes were glued to the mini screen lying on the coffee table in front of him, coincidentally placed beside a gigantic cup of coffee. The coffee simmered and was slowly growing cold as his neglectful eyes scanned the screen, unblinking and unmoved. There was another piercing scream from the screen and he jumped a little, clutching the pillow beside him. He felt as if nothing could pry his eyes away from the movie, but he heard something that sounded faintly like a laugh from some way in front of him. His eyes flicked above the rim of the screen to see—"Sora?" he asked, his throat dry and hoarse, most likely from screaming. The caramel haired boy was seated across from him with a bowl full of fluffy rice glued to his mouth. "… what are you doing here?" he asked him.

"Why are you watching scary movies in broad daylight, Riku?" he asked his oblivious silver-haired friend, who looked as if he hadn't gotten any sleep as of late. After stuffing a clump of rice in his mouth, he continued, "I've been sitting here for hours and you've been screaming like a girl all day. What the hell?"

"Yeah, but what are you doing here?" Riku inquired again. "Like, really."

Sora shrugged, and stuffed more rice in his mouth, looking at Riku weirdly. Riku waited, raising an eloquent eyebrow at him. "Well?"

Sora said nothing.

"Don't you have anything to say?"

"I missed you." He shrugged, nonchalantly.

Riku sighed and rolled his eyes. "Really. I find it hard to believe that you randomly pop in at some early hour of the morning, finish off everything I have in the kitchen and then expect me to believe that sad excuse?" He nodded, "You know what that's called? Obsessive, emotional eating. And what are you—a girl?"

"Shut up, I'm hungry." He said defensively. "Besides—" a pause. "—all this stuff was going bad anyway."

"Okay well, maybe you should go bitch to Kairi about life if you're apparently feeling so bad." Riku told him. "Because she loves to hear that kind of stuff. It'll make her feel better."

There was a short silence as Sora poked aimlessly at his bowl of rice, eyeing it oddly. Riku stared at him, awaiting some form of a response. He couldn't help but let his eyes wander back towards the paused movie screen. Sora had gone back to ignoring him, chewing happily on overcooked rice and veggies. Riku groaned, "Sora...?"

"That wouldn't be such a good idea." Sora told him, nodding slowly. "Telling Kairi wouldn't be such a good idea. And I'll tell you why. It's because whatever I have to complain about, um—it's weird, you know, just really weird. So whatever. And—" Riku gave a disgruntled sigh and dropped his head in his hands amidst Sora's talking. "—where's Axel? Because that apple pie thing in the fridge is his, isn't it? Those taste good."

Before Riku could say anything, there were rapid footsteps down the stairs. Sora and Riku turned to see Axel appear randomly at the rail with a towel tied crazily around his hair and a morning robe thrown over his sleep attire. He glared at them both and pointed tiredly towards the fridge. "Don't touch." He said, darkly, and then resumed racing back upstairs. There was random shuffling and the swinging of closet doors, and then nothing more. Soon, he came back downstairs, fully clothed and hair fully dried—and frizzy—with a comb latched between his teeth.

"Where are you going?" Riku droned at him.

Axel glanced at him, and then whipped the comb from his mouth, running it quickly and violently through his hair. "I have work in like, half an hour." He said, hurriedly. "I slept in again, and I couldn't wake up and my blow-dryer is broken—and look, my hair is frizzy! What the hell is this?" he rushed to the mirror he kept strategically by the door and ran his fingers through his hair, frantically, singing "I'm gonna be late".

Riku cleared his throat. "You really should stop staying out so late. And you—" he turned to Sora. "—what were we just talking about? Something's bothering you and you were or weren't gonna tell Kairi?"

"Tell Kairi what?" Axel interrupted.

Sora shook his head.

"Well which one is it?" Axel asked him again. Sora shook his head once more and returned to his rice bowl. Axel turned back to his mirror in confusion. "Well whatever. You can have the pie. You're being weirder than usual, man. And oh—" he turned to Riku. "—if that girl calls for me again, don't tell her where I am. Please? Fired, Riku, I'll be fired—"

"Okay, okay, get out of here." Riku told him with a wave as he heard the front door shut. He clasped his hands together and then turned to Sora once more, this time much more reproachful than before. "We have to deduce your problem right now, so you can get out my house."

"I don't have a problem." He said between rice.

"You have a problem. And it has something to do with Kairi, right?" he asked, leaning closer to him. "Namine called me this morning and asked me if she'd seen you anywhere, because she was looking for Kairi because apparently someone 'lied to her', or so she claimed, and told her that Kairi was at your place." Riku narrowed his eyes at him. "I'm assuming whatever Namine's freaking out about is similar to what you're being an emo chick over. Whatever it is, I didn't think it was something that someone like you would be affected by. Care to share?"

Sora held up a finger to silence him as he quickly stuffed the rest of the rice in his mouth. Riku shook his head in an aggravated manner as Sora spoke. "It's just weird, I told you." He nodded. "Yeah, it's like… I feel horrible for Roxas, but then again I don't. I guess just the fact I haven't seen him all day kind of exemplifies the fact that I couldn't care less how bitchy he's being somewhere across town. Because it doesn't affect me, right? Right. Because he really likes her and whatnot, but it's none of my business because you know… _I _don't care, right? Right. It's got nothing to do with me. Yet the fact that he's off somewhere depressed and miserable makes me feel really horrible and really happy at the same time, neither of which are… helping. Whatever." He gave a simple shrug.

Riku stared at him. "… can… I ask you something?" he asked slowly with a questioning gaze.

"Go ahead."

Riku examined him for a while longer and after a moment, he gave a firm nod. And he asked him, "Why is it… that you're so jealous of him?"

* * *

End of chapter 8:DD … obviously, I know ..;; Much thanks to everyone who gave me constructive criticism! I really appreciate it :D Next chapter soon :D I'm re-editing… like everything XD; 


	9. 009

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 9  
A Sense of Poise and Rationality

"… can… I ask you something?" he asked slowly with a questioning gaze.

"Go ahead."

Riku examined him for a while longer and after a moment, he gave a firm nod. And he asked him, "Why is it… that you're so jealous of him?"

The room was silent. Sora had somehow stopped chewing, something that would've been deemed impossible a minute ago, and Riku was sure his jaw would've dropped if his cheeks weren't stuffed whole with rice. They continued to stare at each other for a while longer. The atmosphere was unnecessarily tense. Riku glanced away for a moment, and when he looked back at Sora, it either seemed as if Sora's gaze had intensified or Riku was losing the supposed staring contest. Before Riku could speak, Sora set down his rice bowl somewhat forcefully and stared irritably at him. "What the hell?" he snapped.

Riku blinked at him. "What… the hell?"

"What the hell?" he repeated, much more frustrated as he had been. "Where do you get off thinking you can just ask me something like that? Huh?"

"Defensive much?" Riku rolled his eyes.

Sora glared at him. "Oh really? Do I sound like it? Okay—well—whatever, of course I'm not jealous of him! What—okay _why_ would you even think that, you… spineless bastard—as if there's anything to be jealous of—" He scoffed and began to babble random obscenities on his way to the kitchen, leaving Riku in pure puzzlement.

Riku sighed, giving him one final look, and returning to his movie screen. _Yeah_. _Pure jealousy._

----

"Okay." Selphie hummed, scribbling away at her notebook amiably. She looked up for a moment at Namine, hands folded calmly atop the table, and at Kairi who was sipping a full glass of daiquiri, smacking her lips every so often. Selphie gave an aggravated sigh, "Don't drink it if you don't like it."

Kairi pursed her lips tightly and shook her head sternly, not saying a word.

"Anyway!" Selphie broke out into a grin, and set her notebook on the table. She looked back and forth between Namine and Kairi, beaming eloquently. She figured Namine still wasn't talking to Kairi, especially after the whole "Xena" thing, but Selphie quickly got over it—and used her spare time to plan what they should do for the next few days of Autumn Break. "It's ending soon, you know—the break, I mean. And our next vacation is during winter, which is a whole season away! You guys—I've come up with three options for spending the rest of the break."

"Sleep, sleep and sleep?" Namine asked, blankly.

"No, no and no." Selphie rolled her eyes and peered over at her book. "Number one: spend endless days and nights at the beach, sipping peach coolers and watching the sun set. Objections?"

"Yes." Namine said. "I don't like peach coolers and I know you're only saying we should watch the sun set because—what was it you told me again? That—"

"Shut it." Selphie growled at her.

"'That Roxas' eyes look nice in the sunset'." Kairi interrupted, oblivious to the colour rushing from Selphie's cheeks. Kairi looked up at her, and in an instant, Selphie's cheeks burned red again. "You're sad and hopeless."

"Whatever." Selphie muttered, looking back down at her book. "Number two: we stay here, annoy Demyx and try to get him fired, and spend all of Sora's dad's money. Objections?"

"Yes." Kairi said. "I can't take much more of this daiquiri—and Demyx is as close to being out of a job as ever, so it would suck if he actually got fired, and I'm pretty sure Sora spent all his dad's money on food by now, especially if he's still being emo and weird."

"In that case we should." Namine put in, empathetically. "I mean… to cheer him up and all—"

"Well, it's either that or—" Selphie peered down at her book again. "Party at my house."

"Sure." Namine smiled.

Selphie's dad worked in a brewery.

"No," Kairi whined, shifting the glass away from her slowly. "Every time we go over to Selphie's, everyone always gets drunk and weird and then I have to take everyone home!"

Selphie's dad brought back a case of beer every week, as compliments from his company.

"Well, not this time, I promise." Selphie nodded, hands clasped together.

Selphie's dad, Selphie's mom and Selphie's cousin—who lived with them—weren't very big on alcohol.

"And I can't even drive that well, remember?" Kairi asked, leering at her edgily. "Remember? Marluxia had to help me and he can't drive _at all_!"

Selphie's cousin Marluxia Aixeni went to a boarding school. He couldn't stand Selphie and refused to go to the same school as her. He only lived with them because his parents were in jail for "unspoken" reasons. He was a year younger than them.

"Okay, okay," Selphie sighed, waving a hand at her absently. "So we're actually agreeing on this? Right? Right?" Namine nodded quickly and Kairi gave a nonchalant shrug. Selphie squealed joyfully, and began to ramble on incoherently about how 'it was gonna be soooo much fun'.

Demyx wandered over with a drink in his hand, which he placed delicately in front of Namine. She looked up at him, gave him a weak smile, and took the drink in her hands. Demyx, in euphoric bliss, turned to Selphie and nodded. "I'm showing up, okay? I'd rather not get drunk by myself the last day of vacation, 'kay thanks."

"Sure, sure—" Selphie nodded, beaming. "And invite all your hot university friends too, okay?"

"Ha, not like there's much," Demyx shrugged, crossing his arms. "You have me, and uh… Axel. You know him, right? He's pretty hot, too. 's got nice eyes, and um… oh. Riku, he's a pretty sexy guy, if you ask me—"

Namine choked on her drink, fervently massaging her chest.

"—and then, uh… I know this guy, Zexion… forgot-his-last-name. He has really nice—"

"I don't _want to know_." Namine snapped, darkly, flashing him a disturbed look.

Demyx blinked at her. "… _hair_, babe. He has really nice _hair_. God, what do you take me for?" he laughed and headed back around to the counter. Namine watched him leave bitterly and shook her head slowly.

"He's a weird one." Selphie sighed, resting her head in her hands. "And to think, after Roxas and I were finished dating for a while, I was gonna ask him out."

Kairi and Namine exchanged traumatized looks. Neither of them spoke.

---

"I can't believe you." She didn't know how she managed to hear him. It was incomprehensibly loud inside, so much to the point that she was sure the windows would've broken at any minute—and then she'd have another thing to explain to her parents when they got home. She rushed around the kitchen, mixing drinks at an insane speed that anyone watching could safely assume she no longer had any idea what she was doing. But she did: lime spritz, lemon vodka, strawberry cooler. She could very well compete with Demyx's drink-mixing skills.

Looking up a moment to glance at her awkward and nosy cousin, she shoved a drink into his hand and rushed towards the fridge. Her cousin cringed and set the drink down in front of him. "Are you even listening to me, you douche-bag?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"God—Marluxia, shut up—and do me a favor, give that to Demyx, will you?" Selphie called, her head stuck in the fridge doors. "What the hell, where are the coolers?"

"You're gonna get in so much shit from uncle, he's gonna torch your ass and I'm gonna watch—and laugh." Marluxia sneered at her, ignoring her requests. "Once him and auntie come back, and they find their house in ruins… you… are dead." A slight smile brushed its way across his face. "That thought alone coaxes me to want to help you mix weird things together."

"That's nice—give that to Demyx, okay? He needs cheering up, this music can't go any louder—ah! Uh—Tidus! Tidus has my coolers, I know he does, go find him too." Selphie continued to babble to herself as she tasted a tall glass of peach drink, and poured something else into it. "… lemon? What?" she slid the glass to Marluxia and smiled. "This is Sora's, I think."

"Whatever." He rolled his eyes and picked up the second glass as well, heading back down the hall. There was a shrill scream somewhere beyond the wall from his right ear, and a gigantic speaker blasting who-knows-what at his left ear, which, safe to say, provoked deafness. He rounded the corner and found a distraught Demyx sprawled across the sofa, across from a coffee table littered with cards and empty cans of beer. By the looks of the cards, it seemed as if someone was getting owned pretty badly. _Goddamn teenagers. Is this what the world's come to? _Marluxia rolled his eyes and approached Demyx with the glass and shoved it into his dead, wobbly hands. "From Selphie." He murmured.

"Oh, she's a peach," Demyx groaned, sitting up tiredly and bringing the glass to his mouth. "And this is what—cherry? Whatever, my life is over—someone get my wife…"

"I am _not_ your wife, Demyx!" Namine practically screamed from the next room. Demyx didn't act like he heard her. Marluxia had no idea how: he found it amusing enough that amidst the loud music, he could still hear anything to begin with.

Marluxia ignored him and wandered around to the other side of the table and set the glass down in front of Sora, who was poking at his cards irritably. Sora looked up at Marluxia, and with a taunting expression, he reached for his drink and brought it to his lips slowly, murmuring a "Thanks, kid".

"No problem." Marluxia said bitterly, and turned on his heel to leave.

"My God—how can you be winning!" Tidus shrieked, throwing down his cards, angrily. He glared across the table at Sora, who only gave him a shrug, and then at Wakka and Demyx, neither of whom said anything to him. "I don't get it—haven't you been stuck up in your house since Monday or whatever? That doesn't give you any time to quick time learn how to own me in blackjack! No time at all!"

"Jealous much?" Sora smiled, setting down his drink amiably.

"Let me see the last set," Demyx mumbled, warily reaching his hand across the table. "There's no way you're a better cheater than me."

"Demyx, ya," Wakka rolled his eyes. "You're being unnecessary. Give him back the cards—I'm winning this round, I know it!"

Demyx choked back a sob and bit down on his lower lip, his eyes wide and teary. "You know what happened to me yesterday?" he began to sob, his voice shaking, causing a wave of sighs across the room. 'Not again' was basically on everyone's minds at that exact second. "I lost _my job_! MY JOB! I show up and boss is like 'Mr. Lexana, you're fired', and I'm like 'AAAAAHH—'" He screamed for quite a while. For everyone's sake, his screams melted into the atmosphere, and they were heard by almost no one. "—and then I was like 'well how?', and he's like 'you can't keep giving free drinks to your friends and the like, it's _irresponsible_', and then I'm like 'sir, she's not just my friend, she's my future wife—'"

"I am _NOT_ your future WIFE, Demyx!" Namine, again, from over the wall.

"—and then he's like 'well, either way, the company doesn't profit that way yadda-yadda-yadda' and then a whole bunch more BS and now I have no job, guys!" he feigned a heart attack and fell back on the sofa. "The payments for second semester are next month, if I tell my parents they'll kill me, I have no money, what the hell am I gonna do?"

"Consecutively own Sora so he can give you your money back." Tidus scoffed, crossing his arms.

Sora rolled his eyes. "That's impossible—" he turned to Demyx. "—look, you're wasted, you couldn't win me at anything even if you tried—"

"Wait, wait, wait… what the hell—" Wakka interrupted, holding a hand up quickly. He turned to Sora, menacingly. "… why aren't you wasted? We're," he waved his hand around the room. "all in this together, ya. If Demyx is piss drunk, we're all piss drunk. That's the way it goes."

"I wish." Sora shrugged, flipping around his cards and setting them, face up, on the table. "Promised to drive Kairi home. That's 21 by the way." He added, referring to the cards.

Tidus leaned over the table and gawked openly at the cards. "Did you count right?" he yelled across the table to him. Wakka peered over too. Demyx, who gave up a while ago, didn't move from his position on the sofa. Tidus cried, "That's bull! You cheap-ass, lame-ass, bitch-ass—"

"What is it now… 2000… 2200 munny?" Wakka pouted, poking sadly at his desolate wallet.

"2000."

"Bull!"

"Shut it."

"You know…" Wakka began slowly. "You know Namine's friend? That blond guy? He's pure ownage in blackjack."

"Which blond guy?" Tidus asked.

"… Roxas… is it?" Wakka murmured, pulling a few bills from his wallet.

Sora cringed and quickly gathered up the cards on the table, as well as his winnings swaying in Wakka's hand. Wakka happened to have caught Sora's unnecessary cringing and he looked at him, "Do you know him?"

"Uh…" Sora stuttered for a while, quickly fixing all the cards in his hands and piling them up properly, which was extremely weird and noticeable by both Tidus and Wakka. "Well…" he continued.

"Dude, it's either you do or you don't." Tidus rolled his eyes.

_In that case, no._ _No, I don't know him. I've never met him ever in my life, nor do I ever want to come face-to-face with him ever again! _Sora nodded slowly. _What have I taught you—nothing? … are you talking to yourself? _He mentally kicked himself and told Wakka, "I know… _of_ him… met him a few times… whatever."

"Yeah, you have to play him some time, ya." Wakka nodded, with a smile. "He'll so totally own you, I swear! He's here, isn't he?" He stood up and peered over his shoulder into the hall. "I'll go find him—"

_What? No! _Sora shook his head quickly. "If he's busy, it doesn't matter—"

"No, I know him, he's cool," Tidus nodded. "He'd come over anyway."

_Oh really? That's good. That's great. Whatever. _Sora sighed and massaged his temples briefly. He waved at Wakka, who quickly rushed around the chair and somewhere down the hall towards dearest Roxas.

* * *

I'm aware that was a… not so cool way to end it… but this chapter and chapter 10 were originally one ginormous chapter… and now they're not. :D … reviews would be nice and oh so spiffy :D And, just for the record, I really appreciate everyone who adding this to their favourite stories list :D I'm really surprised, actually :D 

Anyway... next chapter really soon, because it's actually already finished and I'm just being weird. :x Yep.


	10. 010

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 10  
Clever beyond words, to a certain extent

Roxas, who was all but terrified prior to that night, froze the instant he arrived at the doorway to the room. Wakka almost bumped into his back on the way in. There sitting exactly as he had left him, was Sora, tapping his fingers peculiarly on the chair's arm, while flashing nothing short of a glare at poor, poor Roxas. Wakka was pretty buzzed by then, so Sora might as well have been giving him a wide, toothy grin at that time and he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. "What, ya?" Wakka asked, ushering Roxas inside to his seat.

As soon as Roxas sat down, Sora picked up the cards and began to shuffle them, blatantly ignoring Roxas' prying eyes. "Uh…" Roxas began, slowly, causing Sora to stop abruptly at stare at him. Roxas cleared his throat nervously, "Um… Kairi told me you weren't… feeling so well last time…"

"I got better." Sora shrugged. He gave Roxas a slight, weak, not-even-really-there smile—just to eliminate the supposed tension in the room—and then returned to his cards. Not only that, but—_listen to me, son, I don't think we fully established why you're acting so weird towards Roxas anyway. So tell me. Huh? Is it because Kairi likes him? Is that it, you jealous prick? My God, isn't this exactly what happened when—_Sora slapped himself in the head, which got no weird looks from anyone, as they were all pretty gone to begin with. Besides—_isn't it weird how, whenever someone's thinking something slightly forbidden or plot-driven, they always get cut off at "this is what happened when"? Isn't that weird? Think about it, if you can—_

Needless to say, Wakka's said definition of ownage took close to five games, all of which were draws. Tidus was purely convinced that 'they were both scammers and this was exactly what happened when scammers played each other'. He scoffed and crossed his arms, "Okay, that's enough scamming from both of you—I wanna play someone." He turned to Sora instantly and gestured towards the doorway. "Get up, I'll beat the new kid."

"Ya, he's not new anymore," Wakka told Tidus, resorting to massaging Roxas on the shoulders to prove his point. Roxas froze, looking up at Wakka and raising a confused eyebrow at him.

"Bring it," Tidus sneered at him. Wakka glared at him and instantly pulled Roxas out of his seat as Tidus began to deal cards. Both Sora and Roxas were slightly confused as to how they got kicked out of their own ownage-fest, but neither of them had the real capacity to think just then.

Halfway down the hall, a disgruntled Marluxia stopped Sora and shoved a drink into his hands. It was safe to say his face was as pink as his hair just then. He grumbled, "From my stupid cousin. If I were you, I wouldn't drink it. She's probably trying to get everyone drunk so they can pass out and she can molest them in their sleep." He rolled his eyes. "You know how weird Selphie is." And off he went to his corner in the kitchen.

Sora hadn't understood a real word he said, but gladly accepted the drink otherwise, as he headed towards Selphie's insanely huge backyard, decked with gnomes and random patches of tomatoes. Her mother loved gardening and designing her garden was a yearly event. This year, it was only tomatoes, and she claimed if you were to fly overhead, you'd notice the tomato patches create some form of Arabic pattern… needless to say, no one believed her.

As soon as Sora took a step outside, he choked and held his chest. His eyes remained wide and shocked as he scanned the backyard in a confused manner. His brain wasn't working as fast as it should've been.

"It's the fresh air." Riku informed him, randomly popping in beside him. He guided him lazily over to the bottom step where Kairi was sipping uneasily on a glass of what seemed like water. Sora dropped down beside her still massaging his chest oddly. "Anyway—" Riku continued, as he took sips of what seemed like water too. Seemed like the drinks were really getting to everyone. "—as we were saying! …his parents probably went somewhere, and I bet they use that whole jail thing to cover it up."

"I doubt it." Kairi shrugged. "It's been a long time. Remember?" At this she nudged Sora in the arm, almost causing him to tip over. She smiled and rolled her eyes, "You're hopeless—anyway. Remember when Marluxia first came to live with Selphie? It was that day we saw her crying on her front step back in… sixth grade. Talking about how she hated him and stuff… well yeah, if you ask him why they're in jail, he'll say they're not and then he'll change his mind and say they are, so he's clearly lying."

"I always figured they died." Sora shrugged, taking another swig of his drink. "I don't know—why are you guys talking about this anyway?"

"Because Selphie just ran out here telling us that 'he should go away and join his parents wherever the hell they are'." Kairi answered, nonchalantly. "Seemed pretty cryptic."

"She's just overreacting."

"She's just really buzzed."

"Speaking of which," Sora began, setting down his drink by his feet. "Why aren't you drunk and passed out yet?" he asked Kairi, who only raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, what other reason do I have to drive you home if you're drinking water?"

Kairi laughed. "You're still going around telling people that? It's true what they say—if you go around telling yourself pure BS, you start to believe it yourself." She handed him her glass of water. "Drink it. I'm pretty sure you'll pass out soon."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"I'd tell you, but I don't think you have the capacity to think right now." She rolled her eyes and spoke slowly, making sure to enunciate. "You told me if you went around telling people that you had to drive me home, it would be reason enough for you to not get piss drunk. But you gave me your keys anyway. You said I should keep them because you're probably gonna break your promise and be gone by the end of the night, and oh how right you were—"

"Shouldn't bet too much on her still having them, though," Riku mumbled, absently. "Axel probably has them, since he's been in her pants and all—"

Kairi choked. "Riku, shut up!" She snapped at him.

Sora blinked at her. "Axel has my keys?"

Kairi pointed to the glass. "Drink."

---

It was cold that night.

Autumn on an island usually left the evenings blisteringly cold and the mornings scorching and hot. No matter how far away you were from the beach's end, you could feel the magnetic pull of the waves on every side of the island. They were enticing and had the ability to grasp you from any angle, and never let go… or so Sora claimed. Kairi ignored him and continued to direct him on a straight path back to his house when he wandered off the sidewalk or onto the road. She figured it was just his excuse for why he wasn't walking straight to begin with.

_I'm going to kill Riku. _Kairi told herself repeated times that night. All of a sudden, Sora's house seemed ages away from Selphie's and it felt as if they'd been walking for an hour by then. At around two, Riku overheard a tumultuous Namine singing to herself about 'how much _he_ could drink before _he_ passed out' and she had to '_nurse_ him' back to health. She wasn't inconspicuous about it either, as she told Selphie she wanted her parents' room for the night. Any idiot, drunk or sober, knew she was talking about Sora. Generally freaked out of his mind for his dear friend's sanity, Riku suggested that Kairi take Sora home, and since Kairi didn't feel much like driving—as she put it—Riku took the car, and she took the Sora. _I'm going to kill him the next time I see him. There is no such thing as equal compensation for this. Absolutely none._

"Hey Kairi," Sora began suddenly, amidst his ramble on dragonflies.

She glanced up at him wearily. "Yes?"

He paused for a moment. "… you can let go of my arm now, you know."

She nearly choked and snapped her attention towards her hand clasped firmly on his arm—what the hell? Since when? She dropped her arm quickly, reverted to fixing her hair, and recounting all the ways she'd kill Riku the next day.

"Anyway—" he didn't seem to remember anything he just said, and continued on as if nothing was bothering him and he wasn't drunk past the point of comprehension. "Remember when we were younger and Riku's grandmother was alive?"

"This has nothing to do with dragonflies." Kairi mumbled aloud, flashing him an odd look.

"Dragonflies?" he asked, slowly. "You're zoning out, huh? Focus, okay. Really, this is important."

She couldn't help but laugh—and then pull him back on the sidewalk fervently before he almost walked straight into a light pole. "I'm listening."

"Well yeah, Riku's grandmother was really, really damn old." He told her, bluntly. "And she looked like a man. But she used to bake cookies a lot, even though she was diabetic, and so she gave them to me a lot… before Riku moved in with her. His parents were all 'well, we're getting divorced or something, so go live with your grandmother' or something, so he lived with her. And you know what was weird—when my parents got divorced, I didn't have to go live with my grandmother, because she was old and she lived halfway across the island. I remember I asked my mom why she and dad weren't gonna live together anymore, and she said it was because of money. I was young so I had no idea what she meant and stuff, but if I ask her now, she won't tell me. When you're younger, people tell you things because they know you don't understand. As you get older, they tell you nothing. I still don't know why my parents are divorced anyway; they call each other all the time. … Namine told me, I had no idea."

"And this has what to do with Riku's grandmother again?" Kairi asked with a slight smile.

He narrowed his eyes at her, indignantly and stopped walking for a moment. Kairi stopped abruptly and turned around to face him. "What?" she inquired nervously.

"You like Roxas, don't you?" he asked her.

Usually, the intended reaction would be wide-eyes, dropped-jaw and panicky expression followed by a lot of 'umm's. However, in this case, since Kairi knew Sora was one to ramble especially if he's mentally "not there", she only raised an eyebrow at him, quizzically. "What?" she asked again.

"Just asking." And with a simple shrug, he strolled past her, hands stuffed sluggishly in his pockets.

_Just asking? Just asking, my ass! My God—he gets weirder everyday._ She rolled her eyes and rushed to catch up with him. "Hey," she poked him in the arm. "We should probably be having this kind of conversation when you're sober and your responses won't be lame-ass answers—but really. Are you okay? Honestly and truthfully, I'm really concerned."

"Of course I'm okay." He shrugged nonchalantly. "… well my head hurts a bit, and it feels like I'm not even walking." He gave a slight smirk. "Really weird."

"Well, uh, I mean these past few weeks and everything." She added. "You remember? How you're always randomly getting sick and we never go anywhere anymore—remember, we didn't even go backend shopping this year." A pained expression swept over her face for a moment, but it was gone before he looked at her. "Really. If anything's wrong, you'll tell me, won't you?"

He nodded quickly and continued to walk without saying another word to her.

She sighed and followed beside him, her hands clasped tightly around her bag and her eyes staring pointedly at the ground. She was relieved that Sora was finally beginning to regain some of his composure and began to walk somewhat straight, because she no longer had the motivation to pull him back on the sidewalk. She let out a heavy sigh and glanced up at the sky momentarily. _This is weird._ She looked at him through the corner of her eyes, biting down on her bottom lip with certain anxiety. She hadn't been so aware of when the glint in his eyes began to vanish, but it surely was gone. His usual bright blue eyes were now glazed over with an uneasiness that, for some reason, wasn't there before. It bothered her to think that out of everyone they knew, she wouldn't tell him if anything was bothering him. _Think, Kairi._ She sighed again, and tapped her lip with her finger eloquently. _It probably has something to do with his parents, doesn't it? Wouldn't that make sense? Why else would he be going on about Riku's grandmother and… whatever else he was saying?_

"Good God, where the hell is my house?" his voice interrupted her train of thought, as he paused for a moment looking up and down the street. "It's… that way, isn't it?" he mumbled, his speech slurred. He glanced at Kairi, and then over her head, "Where do you remember… it is?"

"Uh—over there." She pointed towards the first street somewhere in front of them. Before he could walk by her again, she quickly grabbed his arms and stood directly in front of him, peering wholly into his impassive, cobalt eyes. He didn't say anything, nor did he find anything weird with the situation itself. A while or two, he glanced over her head into the distance towards the supposed street he lived on and suddenly, he could feel her arms snaking around his waist to his back and her head pressed gently on his chest.

He nearly stumbled back from shock, but managed to regain his balance when Kairi tightened her grasp around him, and clung on to him like a child would to a teddy bear.

It seemed as if for a moment everything had completely stopped. The waves were frozen in a timeless still and what used to seem wispy to Sora, seemed much more concrete than it had just a while ago. What…? Was he dreaming or something?

Her voice was sharp when she spoke. "I hope to God you haven't been on drugs or anything for the past few weeks, or I'll _thrash_ you."

Everything unfroze, time resumed as normal, Sora was still as drunk as hell.

She looked up at him. He shook his head slowly. She sighed, only somewhat content with his answer. Gently resting her head on his chest once more, she asked him, "Are you okay?"

Truthfully, Kairi's grasp around his waist was most uncomfortable. It didn't help that he was much too tense for his own good, but he definitely felt as if he just wanted to run home, drop down on his bed and sleep. So of course, not really understanding exactly what she meant, he told her, "Not really", and nothing more.

"Really?" she sounded defeated. She let go of his waist, grasped his hands in hers and peered up at him with wide, prying eyes. Sora was afraid; tipsy, light-headed, and afraid. She continued, "You know… if anything's wrong, you can tell me, right? I mean, I know I asked you that before—like just now, actually—but I'm serious, I'm really, really worried about you. You're the closest I've ever had to a brother, you know. So I care about you a lot."

"I know." He answered, hurriedly. For all that his willpower was worth, he couldn't seem to seethe his hands out from Kairi's grasp. Her concern outweighed his desire to get home, any day. "Uh—it's… yeah, I know."

She let go of his hands quickly and flung her arms around his neck. Dearest Sora was intoxicated beyond belief, so this all seemed quite bizarre to him. The general concern Kairi had for his well-being seemed to rush right over his head like a brief gust of wind, and he just assumed she was secretly wasted and incredibly horny. Which is why it came as no surprise when he felt her lips against his.

For someone whose mind was generally blabbering in jibberish the whole night, it was a severe change of pace to find himself actually, and quite suddenly, thinking. And while he was thinking, and while his arms found their way to her back—somewhere in between—he kissed her back.

… _what the hell—didn't we just establish the fact that you were THINKING? … are you even listening to yourself? You realize this doesn't make any sense at all right? Right? … my God, you horny bastard._

There was what seemed like a flash of light, and for a moment, the whole world lit up. And then off it plunged again, into the depths of darkness. It was like euphoria… but it was weird, kissing your "brother". …

Kairi's eyes snapped open and she nearly jumped back, jaw dropped, eyes wide—the general reaction. She didn't bother to waste another moment attempting to comprehend what just happened. Her heart was racing, her palms were sweaty, her fingers were growing numb—did that—there's no way—that actually happened…?

She screamed. As loud as she could.

And she ran. As far away as possible…

…just so that he wouldn't be able to see her face light up.

* * *

Canon for the win. :D 


	11. 011

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 11  
Testosterone Boys and Harlequin Girls

She was feeling horribly giddy that afternoon.

It was safe to say the last day of Autumn Break did a serious toll on everyone, and almost everyone who got seriously wasted didn't show up for the first day back to school. The administration let it slide, because Destiny Islands was "such a free spirit that to contain it in endless working days would be unacceptable".

She was feeling _incredibly_ giddy that afternoon.

So much so that Selphie, who splurged her soul the night before and magically woke up in time to be shooed off to school, grew irritated with her random giggle bursts. She rolled her eyes and massaged her head slowly. "I don't get it," she groaned. "You were piss drunk—and I mean _piss drunk_ last night, so how is it that you're the giddy one, and she's—" at this, she pointed to Kairi, who was sipping on a large cup of iced tea quite peacefully. "—completely neutral?" Selphie finished off, leering over the cafeteria table at Namine, who, true to Selphie's word, was beaming as brightly as her hair shone. Altogether she was nothing short of a glowing orb of light.

"I took meds before bed." Namine told her, happily. "And when I woke up—_and… _" at this, she squealed and burst into a fit of giggles again. Selphie and Kairi exchanged confused yet disturbed looks. Namine simply gave a careless wave and rose from her seat, probably to get a drink from the caf. They watched her leave, still giggling like a madwoman.

Kairi took a deep breath and set down her drink, slowly. Needless to say, she was still somewhat racked up about last night. She ran home, screaming the whole way and completely freaking out. A thousand tiny, annoying voices battered against the walls of her head—what if—but why—and how—_WHAT THE HELL?_ She couldn't think. She sat on her porch for a while, trying to recompose herself and attempting to find out what just happened…and she came to no conclusion. She came to the conclusion that there simply was no conclusion. That alone gave her the worst unsettling feeling possible.

What could she say to herself? _No, no, I was just worried about him, that's all. I felt horrible and—and I don't even know… how that happened. _Another sigh. _How the hell is this even explainable by normal terms? I don't think 'it just happened' is a regular response anymore. _Another sigh.

_So what… the hell? …it's not like I like him or whatever. He's Sora—my God—how wrong is that? Since when do you go around making out with people named Sora? Even when we were supposedly not really even going out, I never ever… almost kind of never thought of… or maybe—_

Kairi winced a moment and massaged her temples slowly. "No, no, that's not true."

Selphie blinked at her. "What?"

Kairi shook her head. "It's nothing."

"I think you're going crazy."

"I don't like him that way."

"I think it's the iced tea."

"I didn't actually make out with him, that never happened."

"Maybe you should've—hey, WHAT?" Selphie, probably from the intense alcohol binge from yesterday, jumped to her feet, almost falling over backwards. After regaining her posture and assuring the random girl beside her that she was okay, Selphie turned to glare at Kairi with narrow, slit eyes seething with anger. "Made out with _who? _And _why _wasn't I told?"

Kairi held a finger to her mouth and shook her head fiercely. "It's nothing, really. You're—it's the alcohol."

"No, no, it was the alcohol this morning, but I'm pretty sure that I heard something about you making out with someone, which is odd because I'm pretty sure _I _was the one who was drunk last night, not you." She said, quickly. "Kairi—" she sat down instantly. "—made out with who, when, where, why and how was it."

"Selphie, shut up." Kairi whined, leaning forward to rest her head on the table. She glanced up at Namine, wandering around the caf, networking with random people and giggling so loud, they could still hear her over the volume of the caf. Kairi sighed. "I don't want to think of him that way."

"Well, by the sounds… of it." Selphie paused, and then continued to speak. "It seems like you like him already—"

"Ugh, but no—" Kairi shuddered and sat up instantly. "—you don't understand! This—this is Sora we're talking about, okay?" Kairi ignored Selphie's eyes blow open in an unearthly fashion. She continued, "Yes, I made out with him. Yes, I'm aware he's the one who was drunk, not me. So don't even try to bring that up. It's just really weird, because—"

"OH MY GOD!" In true Selphie fashion, she had to scream it as loud as she could. She was squealing and hyperventilating and freaking out as usual. Kairi ignored her for the time being, until she heard her say—"OH MY GOD—YOU—AND—AND _SORA? REALLY? _MY _GOD—_" It was like something out of a movie. Everything slowed down, the volume of the caf died down and all Kairi could hear… was Selphie. She panicked and instantly put a hand over her mouth, trying to calm her down before anyone else heard. Selphie was giggling and laughing and having a seizure all at the same time. When she finally stopped yelling like Kairi knew she would, she resorted to her big, toothy 'I-knew-it!' smile. Kairi said nothing. Selphie _beamed_. "I. Knew. It," was all she said.

"Well, just—" Kairi spotted Namine waving to a group of people and skipping over, quite fast, back to their table. "Okay, but do me a favour, don't mention it to Namine, okay?" she asked, quickly. "Because—really Selphie—I know she really likes him and everything, so just—please don't say anything, or I'll kill you, I swear—"

"Fine, fine, fine, but promise to tell me everything that happened, okay, okay?"

"Okay, okay, just shush—"

Namine wandered over, still in her state of euphoria, but that didn't hide the fact that Kairi and Selphie were whispering back and forth to each other frantically. It sounded like some foreign language; it was so incomprehensible. She ignored them and sat down anyway. "Well, since we're talking about Sora and all," she smiled, coyly. They assumed she heard his name from across the caf. "I'm gonna go see him after school today." The last part she said in somewhat of a sing-song voice, clasping her hands together and looking up in a melodramatic kind of way.

Kairi raised an eyebrow at her. "How… h-how come?" she asked. It wasn't supposed to come out nervously, but it just happened—and Selphie's eyes were aglow when she noticed. She tried to contain her excitement.

Namine shrugged. "Because he asked me to."

Kairi's raised eyebrow seemed to twitch; subtly, but surely. Selphie kept her mouth shut, but smiled, very sweetly, at Namine. Neither of them said anything.

---

For some odd reason or another, Namine's giddy behaviour only annoyed Kairi as the hours passed. After lunch, it was History—with Namine. She kept telling Kairi that maybe he realized that they were meant for each other—blah, blah, blah, and a whole bunch of other BS. After History, it was the drive home—with Namine. Why? Because Sora wasn't there. Why? No idea.

Halfway out the door after school, Kairi tried calling him, but he wasn't picking up. "My God, why's he being so weird?" she grumbled to herself, bitterly. She stuffed her phone back into her bag and followed the giddy Namine towards her car. She was twirling the whole way there. Kairi was afraid.

Namine hummed the whole way to Kairi's house, which only provoked nausea and a slight headache. "He's purposely not picking up, isn't he?" Kairi mumbled to herself. As much as she didn't wanna talk to him, she still tried calling him every few minutes.

Namine peered over at the caller ID and shrugged. "Maybe he's sleeping."

"Tch, okay," Kairi rolled her eyes, annoyed. "This is exactly what happened last time, too. When I fell asleep with him on his sofa, he ditched me the next morning and he wouldn't talk to me for a _week—_and I really don't know why either." She spotted Namine flinch a little as she said that, but it was nothing major, and soon she was back to being giddy again.

"Well what happened this time?" Namine asked, glancing over at her. "You said 'this is what happened last time', and I know what happened 'last time', so what happened 'this time'?"

_Oh shit. _Kairi shook her head, quickly. "Nothing."

"You sure?" she asked, raising an eyebrow towards her. "Hmm?"

"Absolutely." Kairi nodded, just as quickly. "Uh—" before Namine could say anything, she tapped the window beside her delicately and pointed down a road to the right. "—turn down here, okay? I wanna go visit Riku and see if he's okay."

"How about paying your loyal driver, hmm?" Namine mumbled, with a roll of her eyes. She turned down the road anyway.

Needless to say, the second Kairi got out of the car, Namine gave a quick wave and sped off down the road towards Sora's house. Kairi stood and watched for a moment as Namine's car turned the corner and vanished. She scoffed, "I bet he's not home." _Stop being so bitter. _"… whatever." She sighed again and headed towards the front step, her bag clutched tightly in her hand. She knocked a few times and dropped her head back. She really hoped her dear silver-haired friend wasn't busy; he was always good to talk to about guys.

The door swung open quickly. She looked up for a brief moment and saw nothing but a swish of red hair… and then her eyes came into focus. Staring back at her was the teal-eyed, red-haired, eye-makeup-wearing Axel… and not Riku… _clearly._

… _this is awkward._ Kairi thought, briefly. He didn't look like he was going to say anything. Instead, he just stared at her, very calmly—_which is new_—and nothing more. She sighed, cursing herself for not calling first. Time either seemed to be slowing down or refusing to move at all. She just wanted to close her eyes, open them again and be in her house, by her TV, or in front of a large bowl of ice cream.

"He's not here." He said, quite suddenly. Kairi looked at him inquisitively, and he only smiled. "Riku. He's not here."

"… oh." She said, simply with a slow nod. She looked at him, and her eyes locked with his for only a moment. A shiver fluttered down her spine and she looked away. "Well, uh—" she cleared her throat. "—if he's—I can always come back—"

"What's that about?" he asked, confused. "You don't wanna spend time with me?"

Kairi bit her tongue and managed to keep calm… somewhat. _Like I would, you manipulative, asshole-istic, conceited—_"Well, actually,"—_idiotic, egotistical, stubborn—_"I actually just wanted to talk to him for like five seconds, so—"

Before she could say anything else, he had grabbed onto her hand and pulled her inside, shutting the door behind her. Kairi kept quiet even though she was thoroughly startled and confused. She glared at him, and he glanced at her for a moment. "What?" he asked, briefly before heading off into the living room.

"You could've just asked me to come in, you know." She said, stubbornly, kicking off her shoes. She wandered into the living room to find a phone glued to his ear. He was babbling away in Spanish or something. All Kairi could hear were shrill screams from the other side of the line. She folded her arms across her chest and turned to sit down across from him.

The phone conversation carried on for a while longer, before Axel said "bye" a thousand times, give or take, and randomly shut off the phone. He looked at her for a moment and then got to his feet, rushing towards the kitchen behind her. "You want anything?" he asked, swinging open the fridge door.

"Sure. _Anything's_ fine." She told him, bluntly. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and disappeared into the kitchen. "Who was that on the phone?" she asked, as he came back with a cherry cooler in his hand for her.

"My grandma." He shrugged, collapsing on the sofa opposite her. "She wants me to get married again."

At this, Kairi smiled. "You're 19."

"I'm almost 20, so technically I'm _too old._" He told her, with a roll of his eyes. "Well, whatever. She's always like that. She's 87, she's afraid she'll die soon. We tell her since she's lived so long, she probably won't die for a while, but she doesn't believe us."

Before she spoke, something in her head kicked her, heaved a heavy sigh and went 'tsk tsk' all over again. _Why in the world are you talking to him like you KNOW him? You spend four hours on the phone with this guy all the time, and—really, Kairi, maybe Selphie's right, you're past the point of being crazy. This is pure insanity. Talking like everything's okay with your bastard ex-boyfriend isn't really considered sane by most people._

"Yeah, and I met your boyfriend the other day." Kairi snapped back to attention at his words and quickly looked at him, raising a confused eyebrow. He shrugged, simply, "The… blond, quiet kid… Roxas, is it?"

"Oh? He's nice and all, but we're… not going out." She said with a nonchalant air.

She half-expected him to say something like 'oh really? That's not what _he_ said!', but he only laughed and clasped his hands together. "I'm _sure_." He said, quite sardonically. Kairi glared at him, rolled her eyes, and looked away quite menacingly. "It's no big deal, though," he continued. He talked in a way that one would if they adored the sound of their voice. "He can have good qualities. He's… kind of tall… he's blond—" a pause. "—I bet if he didn't seem as if the world itself was freaking the shit out of him, then he'd be pretty okay to talk to—"

"Jesus, Axel, shut up… please." She added, quite bluntly.

"… fair enough." Axel smiled wryly, and pointed towards the front door. "Riku should be back any time soon. He just went across the street for something. So I promise, you don't have to talk to me any longer than necessary."

_Thank. Fucking. God. This is worse than sitting in with his grandmother at Christmas. _Although she was quite fond of Axel's grandmother because she was short and small and sweet—_no, are you kidding me? Forget it, you owe nothing to his short, small, cookie-baking grandmother anymore! _She cleared her throat and only gave a slow nod of acknowledgement to what he said.

… _I do miss those cookies, though._

In midst of Kairi's heavy, reminiscent sigh, the front door swung open and no sooner had it closed, Riku had his head poked around the corner, lips pursed, eyes scanning the room fervently. His eyes landed upon Kairi, who only returned his weird behavior with a confused look. "Have you called—" He paused for a moment and noticed that she wasn't the only one in the room. Axel stared back at him slightly confused and Kairi retained her puzzled look. Anyone would agree it was a bit strange to see them both in the same room, sober, and not yelling death threats at each other these days. "Is…" Riku began slowly. "Am I… interrupting something…?"

"No." Axel replied, bluntly.

Kairi gave a shrug.

"Anyway," Riku turned back to Kairi. "Have you called Sora at all today?"

"Uh—n-no… yes…" Kairi stuttered, uneasily. "Um—" she cleared her throat, a sign of pure nervousness. "W-why?"

Riku blinked at her. "Why not?"

_Good point._ Kairi rolled her eyes and shrugged. "Um—well… h-he wasn't picking up." This, of course, was only half true. Once the phone rang three times and it sounded as if someone would pick it up, she hung up, hands shaking, heart racing, thinking over exactly what she would say to him… and then she would remind herself who she was calling. She cursed herself for being such a typical schoolgirl.

Kairi was relieved to see Riku acknowledged her half-assed answer with a nod. "Yeah, I know." At the very least, she was somewhat shocked to hear that. Sora was usually into being an idiot anyway, but she figured that he was only being an idiot to her. Maybe this had nothing to do with her after all. "Because I still have his car, right," True to his word, he outstretched his hand and revealed a ring of keys, with a bajillion key chains. "And it's kind of weird driving around town in his car since I'm guessing he can't remember that I have it. So I figured I should probably go over right now after—"

"Yes, we should." Kairi quickly got to her feet and headed towards the doorway. "I'll come with you—" she added, slipping her feet into her shoes and checking her bag quickly. "—um, because I need to… talk to you." She looked at Riku, and they both exchanged confused looks, which was of course peculiar. Riku was the confused one; Kairi was just being weird. "…I'm in the car." She said before leaving and shutting the door violently behind her.

A minute or two followed and soon the both of them were driving towards Sora's house, in deafening silence. The sun rays that layered the streets like candy weren't enough to penetrate Kairi's nervousness. She was shaking, and she didn't exactly know why. "If he asks," Riku would say. "Just tell him that… you can't drive—" he paused to look at her. "—which is true. And I was in—a lecture. Yes. And I couldn't leave."

"He better not ask." Kairi mumbled. She sighed, and looked down at her hands. She looked out the window. She looked out the rear view mirror. She looked—_can you stop freaking out please? Honestly. _She gave another sigh. "Riku, can I ask you something?" she turned to him.

"Go ahead." He replied.

She took a deep breath, and spoke. "Why… why are guys so weird?" she inquired, curiously. He flashed her an odd look and then gave a shrug. "I just don't get why…" she trailed off for a moment, biting down on her bottom lip uncomfortably. "It's like… they don't like you… a-and you know this, right? But then if you're ever with someone else, then it's like they like you, but they don't, and then all of a sudden—they get all weird whenever you hang around other guys—and it's not like I didn't notice that he's being strange on purpose, because he's just… so predictable, it's insane. … you get what I'm saying, right?"

Riku shook his head.

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Jesus—I wish you would stop switching preferences so often! Then, maybe we can actually talk about guys without it just being me… talking about guys."

Riku shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I know who you're talking about. 's enough, at the very least."

Kairi's eyes blew open… and she looked at him, mouth hanging open slightly.

He glanced at her and gave a shrug... and a wink. … a wink and a shrug. Yes. That was definitely a wink.

"Stop the car." Her voice was hoarse.

"Why?" he asked, teasingly.

"I just remembered."

"Remembered _what_?"

"I owe Roxas something."

"Oh _really_?"

"Really. So, um—pull over. I can walk."

"Are you sure you don't wanna go see Sora—?"

"Absolutely."

"… really—?"

"Riku, stop the car or I'm jumping out."

"You sure he won't be offended? Since you didn't stop by after the two-AM make-out session and taking advantage of the fact he was drunk?"

Kairi choked.

The world slowed down to a halt. The car was no longer moving. … and she was no longer breathing. He didn't actually say that… … right?

… RIGHT?

"You… you knew?" she mumbled, her voice slow and hoarse as she turned towards him with wide, eerie eyes.

Riku slowed the car to a stop and turned back to look at her. "So it's really true?" His voice had an air of awe about it that Kairi didn't expect to be there. "B-because I was just joking and everything—"

Kairi didn't have time to be shocked. Pure confusion decorated her features as she stared at her silver-haired friend. "Are… are we talking about the same thing here?"

Riku nodded his head up and down fervently. "You see, Sora called me this morning… or, uh, this afternoon… like an hour ago, actually… whatever." He shrugged. "He told me that after he woke up, passed out and woke up again, he had this really weird dream that he was making out with you… twice."

She gawked at him. _Twice? What the hell? Horny bastard. … okay, like I'm even one to talk. _

"I had no idea that it wasn't really a dream until you mentioned it just now…" he replied, casually. "I figured it was either a weird dream, but in a way it seemed much too coincidental for that to randomly pop up especially after Selphie's—" at this, he paused and narrowed his eyes at the bewildered Kairi. "He mentioned he reckoned he was going crazy, so… I doubt he really thinks—hey, what the hell?" Amidst his speech, Kairi had pushed open the door and stepped out of the car indifferently, as if he wasn't talking to begin with. "Where are you going?"

She swung around to look at her, biting her bottom lip nervously. "For… for a walk." She told him, her voice shaky.

"But—wait—"

Before he could say anything, she spun around and raced down the road. Riku cocked his head to the side, shaking his head in an odd sort of confusion at Kairi's fleeting figure. "… girls are weird…"

* * *

Next chapter soon, I hope :x I'm replanning the ending, so... hopefully this chapter at least fit well with chapter 10 ;; Review if you liked it! Review anyway… feedback is fun :D 


	12. 012

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 12  
Playing Devil's Advocate with a Spoon

It was the third time Kairi spent the majority of the evening at his house.

His parents were more than ecstatic. His mother didn't go to work often, because she was a designer for a company that worked on contract, so she was always there to absorb the effervescent joy seething through the cracks of their home. His father, when he would stop by every now and then, always made it a point to stop by, check on them, and see if everything was okay.

His mother gushed to herself, being motherly and mixing a bowl of cookie dough, as she said, "Oh, and she's so beautiful too."

And oh, how beautiful she was. Her skin wasn't pale nor was it too tanned, but he always thought it was nice just the way it was. Soft, long auburn hair dangled freely about her shoulders, an absolute compliment to her stunning periwinkle eyes and beautifully full lips that he so desperately wanted to kiss... Every now and then, she would glance over in his direction, give him a smile that sent shivers down his spine… he thought this effect would've long wore off, but it was like it was engraved in his being forever. When he thought about it, it really did seem… intangible.

His mother squealed once more.

Roxas, dearest Roxas, rolled his eyes and grabbed the bowl of chips rested on the countertop. "You know—" he whispered to her. "—all this… it seems a bit much."

His mother instantly stopped mixing to give him a stern look. "You'll thank me once you're married." She ignored the bright shade of red Roxas' face turned suddenly, and instead, she brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Besides, it's not like she's not eating it all."

Roxas ignored her and left the kitchen with the chip bowl in hand. As soon as he stepped foot in the living room, Kairi rushed over—with a smile—to take the bowl, and scurried off to the sofa with it like a bunny. He raised an eyebrow at her and followed, quite slowly. Truthfully, for the past three times since she'd been coming over for lunch… and dinner… she was eating practically everything. It thrilled Roxas' parents for more than one reason: he hardly ever ate, so finally the food was going somewhere, and secondly, they figured Roxas would never get a girlfriend again after that "train incident". They didn't speak of that anymore.

"I love this show." She said in between mouthfuls of chips and iced tea. She pointed to the TV and then off in the corner towards one of the male characters. "He's such a bitch, I swear—I've seen this episode like three times or whatever, but it's still really good."

"… oh." He replied, feebly.

She offered him the bowl, but he shook his head quickly. She smiled. "You don't eat too much, do you? That's good… I think." She shrugged. "I was afraid you were turning into Sora. He eats everything. Always. Especially when he's depressed."

_He's like a girl. _… _okay, Roxas, now you could've said that out loud. It would count for conversation, you know. My God—this is horrible. Say something. _"… oh." _You're a genius. _"W-well… uh… speaking of which. I've been trying to call him for a while and I haven't… seen him at school, so… do you know what happened to him?"

Instantly, she snapped her attention on him. His hands began to shake uncontrollably, so he sat on them the most inconspicuous he could. She gave him a quaint look and somewhat of a scoff. "No idea." She said, edgily. _Hey. Remember—you were supposed to see him with Riku that one time, but you left and ran to Roxas'? Remember? _She fought the urge to slap herself in the head with an inanimate object. "Probably been sleeping."

"F-for three days?" Roxas asked, slowly. His conscience beamed—finally, they were getting somewhere.

"Well." Kairi shrugged. She popped a few more chips in her mouth and pointed to someone on the TV again. She nodded, "He's lying when he said he'd probably go back home, you know. I can't remember, but I think he went to the army or something."

Roxas said nothing.

Kairi handed him the now empty chip bowl with a smile.

---

Around the same time, the same evening, there was a soft knock at the door.

He pressed his ear to the door, which was freezing cold by the way, and waited for a moment. He was pretty sure he heard no movement from the other side. Just to be sure, he rushed around the corner and peered in through one of the windows. Though the sun was setting over the buildings in the distance, he was sure there was no one in the house. _Score._ He thought, rushing back to the front door. He shoved in his key, twisted it for a while, and slowly pushed open the door. The house was dimly lit by the sunset, but generally, it was quiet, cold—and empty. _Double score—_

"You know—" he screamed and jumped a little when, all of a sudden, his mom popped out of the shadows of the hallway. She was wearing her night robe, her hair tied up sluggishly, and had a granola bar crammed into her hand. She smacked her lips, clearly picking granola from the crevices of her mouth, and took another bite into her bar. "—I still remember when you were five-nothing, and no one thought you would grow any taller. I believe that was… when you were 10."

He blinked at her, wholeheartedly. "… mom, what?"

She smiled at him, and approached him with a motherly smile. "But now you're taller than me." She smiled, reminiscently. "Ah, well… when you were younger and shorter and… shorter—" a pause. "—I guess it was easier to sneak off for three days without being noticed. But when it's only you and me that live here, it's, um… it's not an act of inconspicuousity."

"That's not a word."

"Welcome back, by the way."

"Thanks." He replied, nonchalantly. She turned and headed into the kitchen and flicked on the light. "You know," she called from the kitchen, as he timidly approached the fluorescent lighting. He entered the kitchen to see her gnawing on a piece of chicken, carelessly. She swallowed, took another bite, and stared at him for a while longer. "You know," she repeated once more. "I preferred it a lot more when you stayed in your room all day and only came downstairs to ravage my kitchen." She raised an eyebrow at him. "If you leave, no one will eat anything of this. And I'm trying to keep my figure, you know." She smiled and took another bite into the chicken.

He shook his head slowly, a look of confusion painted across his face, but said nothing.

She smiled, warmly. "What do you think? Maybe I should forget about watching what I eat, and be more like Kairi. You and her are so similar, and neither of you gain anything—" she glared at him. "—kids these days."

He shrugged. "Sure," and said nothing more.

"So," Ms. Akela began in a sing-song voice. "What did you and your dad talk about for three days without me?"

"He works weekdays, so he was hardly ever there, actually." Sora nodded. "He called from work twice a day to remind me there was ice cream in the freezer downstairs, and Saya's birthday cake was in the downstairs fridge, too."

"And how is baby Saya?" she asked, smiling widely.

"Baby Saya is good, actually, and she can speak now. The majority of it is… mangled English... and French. Dad's teaching her French." He gave a slow nod. "Is… are we done with this weird Q-and-A session?" he asked, somewhat hopefully.

"A—no—you aren't hungry?" it almost seemed like she whipped a full plate of rice and chicken out of her robe, but if Sora was paying any attention prior to then, he'd know it had been sitting in front of her forever. She pushed it towards him and he gladly accepted it, ignoring how tired he was just then. She smiled and reached over to pat him on the head. "You're so predictable, it's cute."

He looked up at her, but said nothing.

"Well yes, I noticed," she continued, clasping her hands together. "That for some reason, whenever you feel horrible about something, you either—stuff your face like a cow or 'randomly visit your dad' without telling anyone."

He shook his head quickly. "Okay, first—I _always_ eat this much—" She rolled her eyes. "—it's true. And second, I don't get to see Saya that often and I wanna make sure I have absolute influence on the way she grows up since she is my little sister—"

"Half sister."

"Hey, let's not bring ancestry into this, okay. That's such a cheap shot. Point is, I have reasons for randomly running off to dad's house, as you so affectionately called it." He told her. Her smile widened. He ignored her and poked at the rice absently. "Besides, I didn't go by myself this time anyway."

"Oh really?" she asked, perking up slightly. "D'you go with Kairi?"

He stared at her for a moment and stuffed a spoonful of rice in his mouth. He shook his head, "Yeah, I wish." He said, flatly. "She's being weird and not talking to me—" _Well, I am also being equally as weird and not talking to her somewhat almost whatever I really don't know why. … _"—so I went with Namine. She lives next-door to him anyway. So we hung out for, um… three days… so, um… yeah."

Ms. Akela raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh _really_?" she grinned.

He nodded, giving her his most innocent look.

She said nothing.

---

Every now and then Riku would glance up from his textbook—and yes, I know what you're thinking. Given the current setting, which is anything but campus study-grounds, it might seem as if there isn't a real reason as to why he would have it. "Exams next week", was his only believable excuse. He'd been tutoring Demyx for the past while and felt himself losing brain cells in the process, so he figured a quick review session was needed.

Sora sat across from him, head rested lazily on his hand, as he stared dully at his phone in his other hand. His eyes scanned the screen monotonously. Every so often, he would laugh at the screen, reply with a "Hayner's an idiot", and then resume poking at his phone. As oblivious as he was, he noticed Riku's odd glances at him, but didn't say anything.

Kairi, dearest Kairi, had ordered herself a box of muffins and was ever so close to finishing them off. This whole situation was more awkward for her, but only because Riku wouldn't stop giving her weird looks. She stared at him. "What?" she asked, sharply.

He smiled, very sweetly, at her and shook his head. Sora raised an eyebrow at him. Riku smiled at him too.

"It's nothing." Riku said, returning to his textbook. "Welcome back, by the way—" he flipped a page in his book and looked up at Sora. "—it's so nice of you to join us after your three-day, random, unnecessary vacation."

"Isn't it, though?" Sora mumbled, absently. Another smile and more buttons on his phone, "Hayner's an idiot…"

The phone beside Kairi's box of muffins began to ring frivolously. She glanced at it, muffin stuffed in the crevices of her cheeks, and then reached for it lazily. "Hello?" she spoke into the phone. She noticed if only for a moment both Sora and Riku were staring at her. She rolled her eyes and turned the other way, "Who's this?"

"It's me." Namine giggled from the other line. Kairi popped another clump of muffin-y goodness into her mouth, painfully enduring the remainder of Namine's giggling. "Okay, where are you right now?"

"That café place past twenty-first. Wasting Riku's money on muffins. Why?"

"Is…" She took a deep yet shaky breath, which lasted longer than it should have. Luckily, or unluckily for Namine, she was much too predictable for her own good and Kairi could tell that whatever she wanted to ask had something do with Sora. There was another breath— "Is… is Sora with you?" she asked in a breathy whisper.

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Yes. Why?" She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was still messaging Hayner, mumbling 'Hayner's an idiot' occasionally. Truthfully, Kairi seldom could figure out why Namine would ask anyway. She knew the blonde all too well, and Kairi's responses of 'yeah he is, how come?' were always followed by 'no reason… just stay on the line'.

However. This response was quite different. "Okay, so can you let me talk to him for a sec?" she asked.

Kairi froze. Was… was the world coming to an end? Why didn't she see it coming before? The warm weather in late November, the bird that wouldn't stop pecking at her window for the past week, the imports shop downtown that stopped selling those really cute handbags—it was absolute chaos. And now—just now—Namine was all of a sudden asking to _speak_ to Sora? What?

"What?" Kairi asked, in a shrill voice. Sora looked at her with a startled expression and Riku simply smiled warmly at her weird behaviour. She pretended to ignore them, and whispered into her phone. "W-what? Um—are—w-well—" _Say no._ "No." _But wait—_ "Actually—" _You should let her talk to him. I mean—um, it's good that she's… not as shy as she was before, right? _"But it's _my_ phone."

"Well said." Namine replied from the other line. Kairi mentally kicked herself as she hadn't noticed she'd been talking to herself out loud this whole time. Namine didn't sound disturbed or let down in any way. On the contrary, she wasn't phased at all. "But see, it's really important, it's about this Saturday… like tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow. And I'd call him, but he's talking to Hayner—and, it'd just be weird…" her voice trailed off a bit and there was minor rustling from the other side. "Hayner says hi, by the way. He can't talk, he has strep throat."

Kairi sighed. "Well if you're over at Hayner's anyway, just tell him to quit messaging him so you can call him—"

"I would, but…" her voice trailed off once again. "… uh, I just really wanna know what they're talking about first—Hayner, move your finger, I can't see." A pause. "Oh. … oh, I thought he knew. I mean, even I know—and I got over it, even though it took a while, but I mean—"

"Hayner's an idiot…" came Sora's reply, but this time much more distantly. Kairi glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He stared, perplexed, at the screen and scanned it over a few times. "… 'By the way, I hate you for making out with my girlfriend, you slut'…" He read over it aloud. Riku looked up at him, and then turned to Kairi instantly with menacing, large eyes. Before she could say anything, Sora continued to read, "'Okay, so she's not my girlfriend yet…' … 'Whatever, just because you've known her longer.' … 'I'll never forgive you, ever.' … 'I hope we're still on for the bar at 9'." Sora read over the messages again, growing more and more confused as the seconds passed. "What the hell are we even still talking about?" he mumbled, poking buttons on his phone.

…_oh my God. He better not be talking about… _Kairi tried to inch closer to Sora's phone so she could see what he was writing.

"Kairi? You still there?" Namine's voice echoed from the other side of the line. "Give him the phone okay? Or tell him to call me—today. Today, before 3. I'll be ready before 3. … I think. … Kairi?"

"Yeah—um—before 3… okay bye." She mumbled, wispily. She clicked off her phone nonchalantly and inched closer to Sora, peering wholeheartedly at the screen. "… 'Who are you talking about?'" she read slowly.

Sora jumped and, startled, turned to face her as the message went through. "Can you not read so creepily over my shoulder like that?"

There was a miniature dancing paopu fruit at the corner of the screen and Hayner's message popped up within seconds. Kairi glanced at it, the message—her name. In bold. In capitals. In gigantic, bold capital letters. In gigantic, bold, capital, flaming— "Hayner's an idiot." She said between gritted teeth. Before Sora had a chance to even read the screen, she snatched the phone away from him and shut it off.

He stared at her bewildered and she pretended not to notice, fixing her hair from her eyes and stuffing her phone back into her bag. She reached for another one of her muffins, took a bite out of it aggressively, and turned to stare at him. He was still gawking at her, incredulously.

"What the _hell_, Kai?" he exclaimed. A pause. "Speaking of which—" he nodded, seemingly neutral once more. "—I didn't read the whole thing, but… w-was he talking about you?"

_Damn it._ She bit her tongue and shook her head furiously. "Of course not."

"Who else's name starts with K-A-I?"

"Tons of other people."

"Like who?"

"Jesus, Sora," she rolled her eyes. Her conscience was a giggling ball of fluff; she was actually doing a decent enough job of lying. "K-A-I… um… Kai… Kai—Kaikala, Riku Kaikala, of course." As soon as she said this, Riku looked up at her, angered yet amused. He would've laughed because he had no idea how she was able to create such a horrible lie, but then again he would've cried because his last name just had to start with the same three letters as her first name. Life couldn't get better.

Sora snapped his attention on Riku instantly and gawked at him, confused and incredibly afraid. "You're kidding." He stated, bluntly.

"Uh, no." Kairi told him. "I didn't wanna tell you because I knew you'd feel all weird and whatever—okay, you were both drunk and—it was just weird and—"

"Oh my God." Sora mumbled, gravely, resting his head slowly on the table.

Kairi rolled her eyes. "Please, Sora, this isn't Brokeback Mountain. Get over it." She slid his phone closer to his head and got up from the table, brushing muffin crumbs off her skirt.

"You're a genius, Kai." Riku told her, nonchalantly, with a smile.

"… I better be." She whispered back to him as calmly as she could. She took a deep breath and began to head over to the door.

"Where are you going?" Sora asked, dragging his words on longer than usual. He lifted his head slowly and looked at her.

"Uh—" … _where the hell am I going? _She thought for a moment. _You're such a genius, Kairi. _"—Roxas'." _Oh. It works._

"… Roxas'?" Sora repeated again, drearily.

"Yes, Roxas'."

He blinked at her. "How come?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

_What the hell does he mean 'how come'? _"B-because." _What are you—stuttering? _She cleared her throat. _Is it because he sounds so much like Axel? _She choked. _Okay, I'm sorry, never again, I know. _She massaged her chest slowly, and spoke quietly, "Um, Namine says you should call her by the way. Before 3. It's about 'tomorrow'." She told him, putting extreme emphasis on the word 'tomorrow'.

"If you're going to Roxas', I can drive you." He said, outwardly ignoring the fact she said anything.

She looked at him. "Why? I can walk."

"It's like a half hour walk from here."

"I know—I walked to his house everyday for three days while you were at your dad's house—"

_Cringe attack. _Sora flinched as if someone threatened to punch him in the head or, even worse, as if a mental picture of him making out with Riku popped into his head suddenly. "For three days?" he asked again, timidly.

"Yes."

"Well—" _What exactly were you doing with him for three days, huh? … go on, say it. _"—three days for what?" _I like how you always find nicer ways to say such jealous things. _

Kairi shrugged. "We hung out for 'three days', that's all. Now really, are you driving me or not?" she asked, impatiently.

_No._ He nodded slowly and got to his feet. _It's amazing how you can lie so easily, but fail so horribly at telling the truth. I'm really… amazed._

* * *

End of chapter 12 :DD! Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far! And to anyone contemplating reviewing now. :D … okay. … well thanks. :D More soon. :D 


	13. 013

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 13  
I don't feel like dressing up, so is it okay if we just stay in today?

The whole way there, there had been an unfamiliar twitch in his eyebrows and a most unwelcome furrow in his brow. Kairi assumed it was because of what she said back in the café, so she didn't bother to ask exactly why he looked like he was glaring at everything in sight. For all she knew, he probably was. She peered out the window at the approaching street, and grew confused when he drove right past it. It wasn't like this was the first time this happened, either. She glanced over at Sora with a slightly perturbed look. "Are you sure… you know where Roxas' house is?" she asked, annoyed.

"Yes." He practically snapped at her. He took a moment to stare behind him out the window towards the missed street, and then looked back at the road. "Why?"

She smiled. "You drove past it twice."

_Shit, she noticed. … well, hey, maybe if you were gonna outwardly hate on Roxas, you could be a bit more inconspicuous— _"Oh really?" he asked, lightly. "Didn't notice."

"Ah, Sora," Kairi sighed, wistfully and with a smile. "Listen, if you're still freaking out about the whole Riku thing, then—" –_don't worry about it because it never happened? It was really me Hayner was talking about… please. You're not gonna say that. You better not say that. Everything worked out so well too. _"—then… then, uh… don't worry about it. Besides. I know for a fact Roxas' mom has a tub of blueberry cookies. You love those. You'll be okay."

His eyebrow twitched once more. With a tone bleeding with sarcasm, he asked her, "So you were really planning on going to Roxas' place and you weren't just making that up, right?" He asked this with much hope.

Kairi nodded. Sora cringed. _Okay, idiot, let's face the facts here. You volunteered to drive her. So, shut up. _"Whatever. What's so good about Roxas anyway?" … _I hope you realize you said that out loud. …_

"He has nice eyes."

He hadn't really anticipated a response. He assumed that a question like 'what's so good about Roxas?' would be rhetorical, as the answer probably was 'NOTHING'. But still, she answered him looking positively serious. _I am disgusted. _"Are you serious?" he asked with a scoff. "Is that the only good quality he has?" _If you can even count it that way—_

"Actually, no." she told him, casually. "But his eyes are really nice. It's just something I noticed when I was with him the other day." She leaned towards him with a wide, toothy grin. "Jealous?" she asked, teasingly.

… _just a little. _"Uh, no." he answered blankly.

"Liar."

_Damn it. _

"I can always tell you're lying when you don't look at me."

_What? _He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, absolutely confused. "What kind of crackpot excuse is that? I'm _driving_." He turned to her suddenly. A hint of shock swept across her features, but she tried not to show it. However, her frequent glances towards the road said enough. "Remember," he continued. "You're always randomly complaining that I never watch where I'm going when I'm driving—"

"Which you probably should."

"—so technically that doesn't even count as a valid excuse—"

"Okay, Sora, I'm sorry, now could you please—"

"—and even if I wasn't, Roxas lives in the middle of old people country, so everyone there drives at like five-kilometres-an-hour—"

"Sora, focus on the road or I'll kill you."

"—and they're all half-blind so if you drive around them, they'll never know anyway—"

"Sora—"

"Do you really still wanna go to Roxas' house?"

"I—what? That has nothing to do with anything—"

"Doesn't matter, just tell me."

"What? Okay, even if I still wanted to go, you're driving _North_. You do realize you're headed towards the airport, right?"

"So I take it we're not going to Roxas' anymore?"

"This has nothing to do with you—_I'm_ the one who wanted to go, in case you can't remember that!"

… _she has a point. … okay, I shouldn't be patronizing myself. … I also shouldn't be talking to myself. _He rolled his eyes and stopped the car—in the middle of the street. Kairi, flustered and confused, looked as if she would say something, but she didn't. She only shook her head at him. He pretended not to notice. The two of them were completely oblivious to the traffic veering around the car. The street was as good as deserted.

The road was silent.

"Can I… ask you something?" Sora mumbled, suddenly much more distant than he had been.

Kairi raised an eyebrow at him, and shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Is…" his voice trailed off slowly. He looked at her, and then at the steering wheel. He sighed and glanced at her uneasily. "Is… is he really that important to you?"

… _w-what?_

Kairi blinked at him. She wanted to speak but she couldn't. She wanted to shake her head 'no', or nod 'yes', but she couldn't. Too many thoughts were flooding into her mind just then. She couldn't sort them out. Everything began to mix with each other and— "What… did you… ask me?"

His eyes shifted nervously around the car's interior. He cleared his throat. "You heard me. I said is he really that important to you?"

_I don't… know…_

"_You can tell me, you know."_

_W-what?_

"_Well, is he?"_

_She blinked at him. He didn't look much too serious, so she assumed he was just being his regular… skeptical… nosy self again. _

_She hated it._

_She really didn't wanna answer him. He always made it seem as though he had to be the most important person in her life. Her parents didn't mind; they loved him because he was such a good talker. He could get anything he wanted because of his outward personality. Few people knew him the way she knew him, but he didn't seem to care. He was always that way… manipulative, temperamental, egotistical… _

'_I hate you, Axel.'_

"_I don't know what you mean." She told him, coldly._

_He smirked. "I'm sure." He rolled his eyes. "It's just weird, because you're always talking about him…"_

"_Yeah, I've known him for a long time." She said, pointedly. "And—I don't talk about him that much."_

_Axel gave her a look of inquiry. _

_Kairi gave him a weak smile, and shrugged. "Well, whatever, it doesn't matter—"_

"_You still didn't answer my question."_

"_Well, what the hell?" she mumbled bitterly, crossing her arms. "What kind of question is that? Is he that important to me, or is he more important to me than you? Which one do you really wanna know?"_

"_Both." He said, without any hesitation._

_Kairi sighed. "Sora's my friend. It just so happens that he's a guy. And what—it's not like you don't have friends that are girls."_

_Axel said nothing._

"_I knew it."_

"_Okay, but between them and my girlfriend, I'd rather spend more time with you. You know that."_

"_That's not true—what about Consuela? You remember Consuela?"_

_He narrowed his eyes at her and looked away for a moment. "Okay, that's—irrelevant."_

"_You're such a bitch, Axel—you can't bitch at me because all my friends are guys, because honest to God, the only people you know are girls! And really, it doesn't even bother me—"_

_He sighed and wrapped his arms around her slowly, her head buried snugly in his chest._

"—_I don't understand why you take everything so seriously, it's not like I'm sleeping with him or anything—let go of me." She gave an exasperated sigh as he pat her gently on the head. "I'm not crazy, it's true. Every time I tell you something that's true, you always make me feel like I'm going crazy."_

_He smiled warmly at her. "It's a simple question… you could've just given me a simple answer."_

_She rolled her eyes. "Like you ever want a simple answer for anything. You're an impossible person."_

_He sighed, letting go of her slowly. He looked at her, straight in the eyes. She narrowed her eyes at him, and he smiled. "Maybe." He shrugged, nonchalantly._

"_Maybe, he says…" she repeated, dully, with a roll of her eyes._

_He left for a while, leaving her by herself in his living room. She gave a tired sigh and leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. All of a sudden, the room looked much gloomier than it had been. In front of her, on the coffee table, was this picture. It was this picture of her and Axel. It was this picture of her and Axel from her sixteenth birthday, last year. Looking at her features made her feel somewhat nostalgic… she looked so happy._

'_Has it really been that long…?' The longer she stared at the picture, the more an unknown hatred built up inside of her… 'Why isn't time eternal? Why couldn't things just stay like that forever…? … why didn't he just tell me he was such a manipulative bitch to begin with? Then, no matter how much I thought I liked him, I would've never… went out with him…' She hummed to herself. She tipped the picture over, placing it face down, and slowly got to her feet. _

_Axel appeared in _the _doorway by the kitchen suddenly with a bowl of sliced apples. "Where are you going?" he asked her._

"_Home." She replied, reaching for her bag on the sofa. He didn't seem to be convinced at all. "… I'm tired." She added, blatantly. _

"_Really?" _

"… _yes."_

"_We're not going to the beach anymore?"_

_She forgot. What with everything she'd been thinking of often… it completely slipped her mind._

"_You can't tell me you forgot…" he said in a dispirited manner._

"_Um…" she mumbled, nervously. "O-of course not…" she gave him a reassuring smile, which more or less was for her own sake. "I'll be outside."_

"_Sure."_

_The beach?_

It wouldn't make any sense for her to have forgotten it so soon.

… She looked at him, pointedly.

Her eyes were piercing. He didn't look directly at them.

She slapped him over the head.

He winced and grabbed his head in pain. "What the _hell_, Kai?"

"I should be asking you the same thing, Sora."

"Wha—okay…" Sora mumbled, rubbing his head, dejectedly. "Sorry, okay. But really, my head is sensitive—"

"And _thick_, apparently." Kairi crossed her arms, stubbornly. "What exactly do you mean 'is he that important to you'? If it's for your benefit, don't you think you should've asked me 'is he more important to me than you', because really—"

"Either, but the first one _sounds_ nicer." He said, with a shrug.

Kairi looked at him, shocked. Sora glanced into the rear view mirror, oblivious. When he looked back at her, she still retained the same shocked look. She was definitely acting strange. It was such a contrast from the café too… or five minutes ago, even. Exactly what was she thinking about?

"Okay." He began, slowly, reaching for the keys in the ignition slot. "You're going crazy. It's a simple question, you could've—"

She froze. It seemed everything around her froze too. This was much too unreal for her liking. The more Sora continued to talk, the more he began to sound like… _Axel…? _

"_It's a simple question… you could've just given me a simple answer." . . . _

Kairi shivered.

Sora blinked at her. "… are you even listening to me?" he scanned her eyes carefully. They were very much vacant and she looked very much… afraid. The usual sparkle in her periwinkle eyes was gone, replaced with worry, fear and regret. "… you okay?" he asked apprehensively.

She nodded and sunk lower into the passenger's seat.

He stared at her.

"I'm just tired…"

He kept his gaze on her for a second more. "You sure that's all?"

"I'm sure." A pause. "Today's just weird…"

"For who?" he rolled his eyes, ignorantly. "I'm the one who just found out I spent most of my last day of Autumn Break making out with my best friend." A cringe, and then the car began to move.

Kairi gave a slight smile. "You'll get over it—"

"Whatever."

"Hey—" she sat up slowly, stretching her fingers. She waved a hand in front of his face, causing him to swerve casually towards and away from a light post. She raised an eyebrow at him. "You really suck at driving… don't you?"

"What is it?" he asked, ignoring her previous comment.

"… let's go to the beach."

He gave her a confused look. "Uh—where did that come from?"

She shrugged. "I don't know…" Her eyes were still very much vacant as she said this. "…I wanna watch the sunset. I really don't feel like doing anything else today."

He was confused by her weird behavior, but he didn't say anything.

She gave an uneasy sigh, letting her eyes drift towards the window and the disappearing horizon.

_But I thought you knew…_

… _you've always been more important to me than anything._

----

… okay that only took forever o.o;; I couldn't write this chapter so well because I was afraid I was repeating things or whatever… but I think it turned out spiffy, if not decent :D Review if you liked it! And thanks so much—

Okay, for clarification. :D

"_FLASHBACK DIALOGUE"_

'_FLASHBACK THOUGHTS'_

_REGULAR THOUGHTS _(but only amidst non-italicized font or the present, otherwise it's part of the flashback)

Sorry if I killed anyone via confusion. :D


	14. 014

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 14  
If you were trying to kill me, you really should've just used poison

It had been a long night for him.

Roxas wasn't necessarily the forgetful type, so he had no idea how he managed to forget his house keys… wherever he happened to have forgotten them. Technically, they were lost, but he still called everyone he could get in touch with and told them that if they spotted a set of keys attached to a packet of spearmint floss, that they were his and he would greatly appreciate their return. … the keys more so than the floss.

Any attempts to climb up onto the roof and through his window had failed and resulted in several bruises. Any additional attempts to wake his slumbering parents had also failed, as they were pretty much out cold by 10. He was left with the only option of passing out uncomfortably in his car, and hoping he'd be able to wake up in time to catch his dad before he left for work, so he could rush back inside and at least find a change of clothes or grab something for breakfast.

However, that didn't happen at all.

He awoke a while before noon. His father had left and his mother wasn't answering the door. "Don't tell me…" he groaned, tiredly, knocking frantically on the front door. He waited, and there was still no response. He even checked his messages on the way to his car, and it appeared no one had even attempted to contact him about his missing keys. "I can't believe this," he said in a sing-song voice, as he got into the driver's seat of his car. The blinking red 'ZERO MESSAGES' in the middle of his phone's screen was enough to make him cry.

And he was hungry. On top of losing his keys and having to sleep outside in his car, he was hungry. Life couldn't get better.

The closest place to his house that sold anything related to food was a quaint, estranged coffee shop 10 minutes down the road. He entered, drained and downcast, and approached the counter lazily. "Can I get a—large coffee… and a biscuit… please?"

"_A_ biscuit?" the man at the counter asked him, brashly. Roxas looked up at him and took a short step back once he finally noticed who was on the other side of the counter.

Blond hair, blue eyes… it didn't sound much like a unique description. "Demyx?" Roxas asked, slowly. "W-what are you doing here?"

"I work here." He said, flatly and none such enthusiastically. His normally gleaming face was replaced with a dull, expressionless appearance. "Now listen—biscuits come in packs of four, so whether or not I know you—it doesn't matter. You gotta buy four. Okay?" he punched in a few buttons on the register. "That's 1300." He held out his hand expectantly and Roxas timidly slid the money into his hand. "Okay—" Demyx sighed, ripping out the receipt and shoving it into Roxas' hands. "—that's a five minute wait as I am the only one on duty right now."

"Wow." Roxas mumbled, unintentionally. Demyx flashed him a disgruntled look, and Roxas shook his head fast. "I didn't mean it that way, it's just—"

"Roxas, is it?" he interrupted him, hastily. He heaved a heavy sigh, and ran a flustered hand through his hair. "My God, life just sucks right now—"

_Okay, let's not talk about how much life sucks. _Roxas rolled his eyes. _I'm frigging starving and I really don't have the time to listen to you right now. I just want my coffee and my biscuit. I swear to God…_

Demyx was still rambling. "—and I failed my culture in Anthropology class! My parents were _so_ pissed at me—and I knew they would be, so I didn't wanna tell them, but my dad's always checking my online course results and so he found out and I'm in _so much trouble_…" he shuddered, eerily. "I really don't know what I'm gonna do. Because I can't take it again because I'm working, like, almost all next summer and—this honestly sucks more than I can even describe, man. Really, it does."

"My… my coffee… please." Roxas interjected. Demyx lifted his tired eyes towards him, and slowly peeled himself from the counter and left to the back, dragging his feet along the way.

"Roxas?" Roxas turned when he heard a female voice call his name from the doorway. He honestly didn't expect to find anyone he knew in here, since it was so hidden in obscurity. He was even more surprised to find that it was Namine, who seemed to always find him at the oddest times, especially when there was a Demyx involved. She scurried in, leaving the door to swing shut behind her. "I didn't expect to find you in here, but I'm happy I stopped after I saw your car outside."

"Something wrong?" he asked, scanning her face carefully.

She gave a grave sigh and shut her eyes for a moment, taking a second to breathe. "Yes…" she groaned, frustrated. She grumbled, and flipped her hair out of her eyes. "Something is _horribly_ wrong."

Roxas kept quiet at first. Something 'horribly' wrong to Namine might have only been a simple mishap to anyone else. Namine gasped. "Don't you care?" she asked, startled and confused.

"I—well, I didn't say that really—"

"Olette… came back."

Roxas blinked at her.

Namine began to whimper, her bottom lip trembling.

"Olette?" it was Demyx. He had returned with a miniature box and a tall cup of steaming hot coffee for Roxas. He set the box and cup in front of Roxas—for once—and leaned towards them over the counter. "Olette Mara? I used to go to high school with her until she left for university. She honestly came back from Twilight Town?"

"Twilight Town?" Roxas repeated. "I'm from Twilight Town."

Demyx shrugged. "That's nice."

"Who is she?" Roxas asked, curiously. By the looks of Namine's constant trembling lip, he could tell that her return wasn't necessarily the greatest thing that could've happened. He half-expected Demyx to answer him, but he was too busy staring at Namine. So he hoped that perhaps she would be able to compose herself in time to give him an answer. … so far, no luck. He cleared his throat, "Uh… so, who is she again?"

"Olette?" Demyx spoke up. "She's Sora's girlfriend—"

"_Ex-_girlfriend." Namine put in. "I have no idea what he saw in her anyway. She's a total whore, she's such a skank and—my God, what a whore. Just because she's older… ugh—guys and going out with older women! What's wrong with them!"

Momentary silence.

"Either way." Demyx shrugged again, and scratched his head. "Unless she… got kicked out of the university down there for some form of an illegal activity, I have no idea what she could possibly be doing back here. …she probably misses him."

"Ugh—whatever Demyx!" Namine groaned, shooting dirty looks at him. "I'm already feeling shitty enough today, so I don't need your input!" she took the box of biscuits alongside with the coffee on the counter and stalked out of the shop with them.

"Namine, those are mine…" Roxas groaned, following her to the door. She got to her car and balanced the box and cup in one hand, as she fished around for her keys in her other hand. "Could—could I at least have one biscuit or something—"

"Whatever, Roxas," Namine sighed, prying her front door open. She handed him the box and he greatfully ripped it open, picking one apart voraciously. She took a large swig of the coffee and then handed him the cup as well. She sighed again, "You know what I don't understand? I don't understand why you aren't taking this as seriously as you should be."

"And why should I be taking this seriously?" Roxas asked, mouth stuffed with biscuit. "I don't really know anything about Olette, so she might as well be a nice person—"

"She is a _whore_." Namine glared at him, catching him completely off guard. Roxas rolled his eyes and bit into another biscuit. "It's true," she continued. "Maybe not in the conventional sense—"

"Well then she's a not a whore, now is she?"

"Shut up, Roxas, you're not helping." She scoffed at him, crossing her arms. "Let's be honest here: Olette's unnecessary return means _what_ for your supposed relationship with Kairi—?"

"What?" Roxas stuttered, nervously. "R-relationship? What kind of relationship… are you referring to?"

Namine instantly broke out into a bright smile, slapping him on the shoulder playfully. He cringed. "Please Roxas," she grinned. "Am I stupid? I think I realized that you're a Kairi fanboy in your spare time."

Roxas froze for close to a minute. All that was running through his head was 'she knows? How could she know? What the hell?' but that soon faded away. He wasn't stupid. If he hadn't come to the terms with the fact that he would never have that kind of a relationship with Kairi, then we'd be dragging on unnecessary plot points for no reason. It was hard to come to terms with something so weird, and it sure as hell didn't take a day either. He took a deep breath and shook his head slowly. "I'm still in recovery stages… so I'd appreciate it if we didn't talk about that." He looked away.

"Oh, you poor emo child," Namine giggled, reaching over to embrace him in a hug. "It's okay—" she latched onto him. He squirmed a little uncomfortably and incredibly confused by her behaviour. He noted it off as 'Olette Syndrome' and settled with the random hug. "—I know how unrequited love feels like…" she buried her head into his shoulder, and gave a melodramatic sigh.

As luck would have it, Demyx popped out of the front doors of the shop at that exact second. Roxas had no idea why he always seemed to pop in at the weirdest times—or how Namine always showed up when Roxas was talking to Demyx. He assumed they had some sort of magnetic pull towards each other. Or perhaps, they shared a legendary paopu fruit at one time in their lives without the other knowing. Roxas often wondered if the myth was true and desperately wanted to ask someone about it, but as the myth was legendary, so was the initial response of 'why? Whose food were you planning on slipping it in?'. Either way, there was Demyx standing in the doorway, a look of pure shock and betrayal painted across his animated features. Demyx screamed. Roxas sighed and rolled his eyes. _What are the odds, really?_

---

"Okay, that's 19, exactly." Hayner screeched, setting down his hand of cards. He coughed in an ugly manner, getting a few odd looks from those around him, and then leaned forward to peer over into Sora's hand and Pence's. "What about you?" he asked, hoarsely. Needless to say, his strep throat was getting better, but not so much so. He couldn't speak for longer than a few minutes without drinking water.

"Sorry, what was that?" Sora asked him, teasingly.

Hayner glared at him and tugged on Sora's cards menacingly. He was able to pry them out of his hands and set them on the table. "19 too?" He coughed. "And you?" he asked Pence, while taking a sip of his drink beside him.

"22." Pence said, setting down his cards. He twitched, and whipped out a cigarette from behind his ear. Selphie, who was sitting across from him with Kairi, shuddered and looked away. She had no idea how people could stuff something in their mouth that they kept behind their ear. "Clearly, you guys have been cheating right before my eyes."

"It wasn't hard." Hayner told him. Pence rose from the table, lighting his cigarette and glaring at Hayner. Hayner ignored him. Everyone who was anyone knew that Pence was always drugged up in some way or another. Always.

Pence grinned, "Smoke break. I'll be right back. Oh—" a pause. "—when I come back, we're playing for Kairi's virginity, okay?" He winked at her. Disgusted, she picked up the menu from the table and held it in front of her face, away from Pence's prying, drugged-up eyes. Selphie choked on her lime drink, shooting Pence dirty looks. Hayner opened his mouth to say something, but he choked in the process and reached feebly for his large glass of water. He swallowed the whole thing.

"I doubt she still has it." Sora mumbled, offhandedly, while shuffling the cards. Kairi slid the paper away from her face for a moment to glare at him. He sighed, "We can play for Selphie's, though—"

Selphie cringed. "Ugh—no way, are you crazy, forget it, I'm not going anywhere near—my God, you guys are disgusting—"

"Fair enough." Pence shrugged, and turned to smile at Selphie. She ignored him. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and lofted out of the bar casually.

Selphie glared at him on his way out, and collapsed on top of the table as soon as he left. "I hope he gets hit by a car or some inanimate object falls from the sky and breaks his head open. He's such a bastard, stupid Pence—"

Sora yawned and set the deck of cards beside Hayner's drink. He then proceeded to flip open his phone and find someone to text that wasn't busy. Kairi set down the menu and delicately reached for her smoothie on the other side of the table. Selphie retorted to murmuring death threats towards the absent Pence, wishing that he would be the victim of some random freak accident in the next two minutes. It was definitely a passive and boring afternoon.

"Selphie." Hayner spoke up, hoarsely. He coughed briefly before continuing. "Are you so mad because—" Pause. "—you actually possess a 'virginity' that—" Pause. "—Pence would be captain of if—" Pause.

Selphie cut him off. "Shut up, Hayner."

Hayner coughed and reached for Sora's unattended drink by his elbow.

The front door of the bar slowly pushed open. Selphie sat up straight, instantly looking to see if it was Pence and that a spear was stuck through his right ear like she hoped. But instead it was a girl she saw: somewhat tall, with very ideal features. She had green eyes that stuck out like emeralds in a sea of black, and her deep brown hair was tied up loosely with strands falling about her face delicately. She had her purse clutched tightly in her hands as she searched the bar frantically. Though this girl clearly wasn't Pence, Selphie still retained the same reaction she would've had if it was him: shocked, confused and lifeless. "Olette…?" she mumbled, quietly.

Only Kairi heard her. She glanced at Selphie and then followed her gaze towards the doorway. She shrieked the instant she spotted Olette at the door. _What the hell…? _She brought her hands to her mouth in shock as she trailed the brunette throughout the bar. She couldn't believe what she seeing. _I swear she was supposed to be in Twilight Town—what the hell is she doing here?_

Selphie and Kairi exchanged hopeless looks as they figured she was bound to notice them any time soon. Sora sat oblivious to his surroundings, poking random keys on his phone and chuckling every now and then. Hayner engaged himself in a game of solitaire with his deck of cards, earnestly awaiting Pence's return.

"Oh my God—Kairi!"

Kairi raised a confused eyebrow to the approaching Olette. She was sure that she wouldn't be the first person that she'd recognize. Nevertheless, she rushed up to the table, beaming widely at Kairi. She looked upon her as an older sister might view her younger sibling; with admiration and love. Needless to say, Kairi was afraid. Olette grinned and reached over to embrace her in a hug. "My God, you're so pretty!"

_What exactly is she implying? _Kairi thought to herself, absently.

"Oh, you look so much older now," she smiled warmly at her. "You're 18 now, aren't you?"

"I—uh—yeah I am." She replied, stately.

"Oooh good! If I'm still in town next week, we're going drinking, okay?" she asked.

_Okay, like the last thing I need is to go drinking with you. And what's with people and being of age and drinking? Is there nothing better to do than get drunk all day? I never understood this— _"Sure." She gave her best fake smile and Olette embraced her in another hug.

"And Selphie!" Olette waved at her.

"Olette, my God!" Selphie grinned, putting on her best 'surprised' voice.

The fake reunion session continued for a few minutes longer. For what it was worth, Olette did seem really genuine when she was randomly, consecutively complimenting Kairi and Selphie. But she always did that when she was afraid of ignoring people for too long. Dearest obsessive-compulsive Olette hadn't changed a bit.

"Sora," Olette flitted around the table to greet him on the other side. She escorted herself into the seat beside him and sat leaning rather close to him.

Kairi's eyebrow twitched. She picked up her smoothie and drank from it, fervently… while watching the table… in silence.

"Olette, hi," Sora mumbled, stuffing away his phone.

"Hi? That's it?" she asked, sharply. He gave her a questioning look, and she instantly locked her arm within his and stared boldly into his eyes. He blinked at her, and she sighed. "You haven't called me for like almost 2 years and besides…"

Sora zoned out for a second. … was she touching his leg?

"—and I missed you so _much_, so I figured I should come back and see you." She beamed. "That's all."

"You got kicked out of school, didn't you?" he asked her nonchalantly. She gasped, her eyes mirroring shock.

"How… how did you know?" she asked, innocently. "—well, I'm not saying it's true, but—"

"Riku told me." Sora shrugged. "Just now, actually. And—he also mentioned that you'd probably be looking for someone to stay with, so he told me to tell you he wouldn't mind if you stayed over for the weekend at his place—and neither would Axel."

Olette gasped. "But how did he know—and—Axel?" she smiled. "He's pretty hot, actually, but he never wanted to go out with me when we were in high school, I don't know why…"

Kairi sighed heavily, and rested her head tiredly on the tabletop. Selphie pat her on the head softly.

"But no—" Olette gasped, and threw her arms around Sora. "—you're hot too, and I wanna stay with you! So can I? Just for the weekend. Your mom won't mind, right? I love your mom; she's so cute! And if she does mind, I can rent a hotel room for the weekend and you can stay with me anyway. Please? I can't go back home, my parents will kill me! Besides—after this weekend, I'm going to Radiant Garden Academy anyway. So please?"

"You're lucky—" Hayner began, still quite hoarse. He held up a finger and took a sip of his drink. "—that Namine isn't here or—" Pause. "—she'd probably be bawling her—" Pause. "—eyes out or you'd—" Pause.

Olette cut him off. "Namine? Who's she?" she gasped and quickly got off him. The leg touching stopped. Sora was sad. "Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked him, uncertainly.

"Not that I know of…" he mumbled, confused. "Depends on what Namine's going around telling people." Olette gave a slight pout, sorrow pouring from her eyes like tears. "Um," Sora continued. "But you know, if you really want me to stay with you, then I guess I could—" _That's what I get for being a horny bastard. _

Kairi sat up quickly and shook her head. Selphie jumped a little, not expecting Kairi to sit up so fast. Hayner wanted to say something but he had to stop and drink water first. Kairi began, nervously, "Um—y-you can't."

Olette blinked at her. "Why not?" she asked, bluntly.

_What the hell—WAS I EVEN TALKING TO HER?_ Kairi ignored her. "Well, you can't, uh, because, um…" _Think, think, think. _"Oh! Um, Namine mentioned something about this weekend and she wanted you to call her because—uh, because you were supposed to go somewhere with her tomorrow or today or whenever." _At least it's half-true._

"Oh yeah…" he muttered, as if he actually remembered something. Kairi was amazed. She assumed either Namine was lying about that whole thing, or that Sora was lying and he was just saying that to get away from Olette… even though she preferred the latter, it didn't seem like it was the case. "Shit, and I forgot to call her—"

"There _is_ a her?" Olette nearly shrieked.

"Yeah, um—I mean, no, but—um, about the hotel thing—"

"There is no hotel thing." Kairi said, pointedly. She smiled at Olette, who only gawked at her, and at Sora, whose expression resembled nothing short of confusion. "Can I go with you? I need to talk to her anyway." Kairi asked him.

"Um—" Sora was interrupted by Hayner's choking. Hayner was waving his arms around frantically, which could've meant anything. But Sora had no time to decipher it. "—yeah, sure." He told her, getting to his feet. "Olette, I'll call you, okay?"

"Okay…" Olette replied, melodramatically. She looked up at him, her green eyes bleeding with sadness.

Kairi rolled her eyes and quickly rose to her feet. She took Sora's hand from across the table and pulled him to the door. She hoped he wouldn't bother asking exactly what that was about—

"Jesus, Kairi," he said as soon as they got outside. He crossed his arms, and with a smirk, he told her, "Jealous much?"

She held her tongue.

… well at least he didn't _ask_.

----

End of chapter… 14 :D More soon. Review. Okay thanks. :D

And yeah, I'm running out of ending notes, so sue me. XD;;


	15. 015

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

---

Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 15  
I really can't say, but could this be love already…?

_Oh._

… _this…_

… _this is a shock._

Sometimes… only sometimes, though, she wished Sora was stupid. She once had to baby-sit a stupid little child, as she so affectionately called it, and she loved to lie about things and joke about things with the child, because he could never think otherwise. All in good fun, of course. However, it wasn't so much fun when the child grew up and then began to recall on the nonsense things she told him. The exact same feeling she had when she was fired from that babysitting job, was the exact same feeling she had right then.

There were several approaches Kairi could take to this situation. She could pretend to be offended—_no, no, no, he knows I wouldn't be offended if he told me that. It wouldn't work. _

She could pretend that he was hallucinating—_there's a high possibility of this working. After all, he still thinks the whole thing after Selphie's was a hallucination, does he not?_

With her lips tightly pursed together, she narrowed her eyes at him and scanned his features carefully. She could see that his eyes possessed a sense of reserve, which could mean that he was just as lost as she was pretending to be. His eyes shifted uncomfortably around the parking lot. He grew nervous of her bold gaze on him, and he had no idea why she was acting so strange. What was she thinking anyway…?

He cleared his throat. "You're being weird." He told her, bluntly, while looking away.

She broke her tense gaze towards him, and her eyes shone with innocence once more. She pointed to herself in mock confusion, and shook her head quickly, "Me? _I'm_ being weird?"

"Tch, yes." He scoffed. "But I've heard _jealousy_ does that to you—"

He said this subjectively. She had to snap. "What? Me? Jealous of who—of _what? _You and Olette? No way—_no way_, and what—do I even have anything to be jealous of? I can't believe you actually brought that up as if it's valid or something! Haven't we gone over this petty discussion a thousand times? There is—I am just… not a jealous person." _Yes, okay. That was interesting and definitely not spazzy at all. Nope. _

Sora laughed, tauntingly, much to Kairi's dismay. She opened her mouth to say something when he grabbed her hand, and headed off casually towards his car with her following behind. "Yeah, okay Kai, whatever…" he laughed to himself, still overly amused at her random outburst.

"I am not a jealous person!" she told him again, shrilly. "Besides, if I was, do you really think—"

"Okay, okay, I get it," they got to his car and he suddenly let go of her hand to search his pockets for his keys. She felt much colder afterwards, but she didn't show it. "You have nothing to be jealous of…" he mumbled, absently flipping through his array of key-chains. "I already told you I wouldn't ditch you… again. I promised, right?" he glanced at her and was mildly startled by her ingenuous expression. Her eyes were wide and filled with something indecipherable. It was almost as if she was waiting for a certain answer, but he had no idea what he wanted her to say. He ignored her prying gaze for a while and finally found his car key. "Well, we'll assume I actually said all that stuff—" he cleared his throat. "Besides," _Let's see if I can actually get a reaction with this. … I doubt it, but whatever._ "Um… the whole thing with me and Olette; completely mutual… so… um…" She leered closer towards him, her eyes still possessing a childlike wonder. Sora looked away, and pried open the driver's side door. "Uh… I, uh, don't think I'll be 'boyfriend' material again for a long… long time."

_WHAT? _A sudden rush of warmth floated to her cheeks instantly. But she only raised her eyebrow silently, attempting to not look so… so… confuzzled. _But I am confuzzled! What the hell does he mean by that! … w-wait… Kairi… why are you freaking out? _She cleared her throat. "What?" It was amazing the amount of solitude lingering in her voice, especially when her mind was running circles around itself.

… _try again. _He nodded, slowly. "Uh… I don't think I want a girlfriend for a while…?"

"What?" she asked again.

_Jesus—there's only so many ways I can rephrase this! _He gave a nonchalant shrug and took her hand again. She looked pretty out of it and didn't seem to be herself lately, so he guided her around the car to the passenger's side and opened the door for her.

Meanwhile, the little jealous—yes, jealous—pixies in Kairi's head were incessantly freaking out, running circles around themselves and crying themselves to sleep. _Why exactly am I so temperamental? _She thought. _So what if… it's not like I was outwardly thinking that… if he wasn't back together with Olette then we would… go out or something… that's just weird. _She sighed. _I'm just weird. What's wrong with me? Wasn't it long established that—that Sora wasn't my type and we'd be so incompatible because we're always arguing and we never really agree on anything? I mean—it doesn't really help that he's the most stubborn individual I've ever met in my life, with the absolute prettiest blue eyes ever—but he's so annoying and he used to call me all the time and my dad would get all pissed off, and now my dad's just confused as to why he doesn't call and I miss talking to him over the phone—but really, when we were younger, he always used to make fun of me and say I was too pale, but whatever he has a really nice tan, it compliments his hair colour, and his skin is very, very soft… _

She looked up at him.

He stared at her, eyebrow raised, lips pursed, features a jumble of confusion. He slowly raised his hand, which seemed to be attached to hers in a tight, subconscious grasp. He tried to shake his hand free, but she wouldn't let go.

… _oh my God—_it didn't take her long to realize she'd been idle in thought and subconsciously clinging onto Sora… like a ferret. She let go of his hand instantly and ducked inside the car, rubbing her cheeks in an awkward manner, trying to get the red away from them. "Can, um…" she stuttered slowly once he appeared in the driver's seat, still with the same confused look. She tried to ignore that obvious fact and focus on something else—like her feet. Yes, her feet. She cleared her throat again, a bit more composed than she had been previously, and said, "Can, uh… can you drop me at Riku's place?"

Sora, already confused and disturbed by her weird behaviour, only nodded and replied slowly. "… o-okay...?"

---

He didn't actually expect her to be crying this way.

Her eyes were shaded pink and they were puffy from the amount of times she rubbed away her tears in a frivolous manner. She didn't expect herself to actually break down and cry either. She was pretty composed until she ran up the front steps, rang the doorbell and wandered inside to meet her silver-haired friend by his makeshift bed. It wasn't until he uttered the words 'are you okay?' that she realized something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. Her palms were sweaty and no matter how often she rubbed them against her denim skirt, they'd never be dry. Her breathing was short, and even though she didn't see a reason for it, she still found it hard to breathe. There was an uncertain thumping in her chest that she couldn't quite understand. It was painful and recurring, and she didn't know where it was coming from. She felt dizzy and light-headed, and she definitely didn't feel herself.

She sat on his sofa, crying into a mug of beer. Usually, she wasn't a fan of alcohol of any form and she figured that beer tasted like horse piss, purely out of assumption, but she didn't mind the bitterness on her tongue today. For some reason, it was the only thing that could console her.

And because she didn't want to drink alone, Riku sat across from her, a mug of beer in hand as well. He only held it to entertain Kairi's melodramatic ideas. She'd been crying since she got there, but she hadn't uttered a coherent word since. Riku gave up with asking if she was okay, because that would only result in more tears. The only thing that made her feel better was 'more beer?', to which she fondly replied with a nod.

When it seemed as if her crying had subsidized and she was mildly composed, at the very least, Riku decided to coax some form of a motive out of her. "So," he began, slowly. She didn't start crying again, as she did so many times before, but instead she glanced up at him over her mug. "Okay," he continued, briskly. "What happened?"

She took a deep breath, and told him, "I think I'm sick, Riku."

"Sick?" he repeated. "As in… as in 'sick'… sick?"

"Yes… sick."

He cast a nervous glance her way, completely uncertain of what to say. He could go with the 'more beer?' approach but that would only make for a very wasted Kairi and a lack of emotional progress. He folded his hands together and twiddled his thumbs, idly. "Uh… okay…" he stuttered. "Don't you think you should be going to see a doctor instead of… me?"

"Nope." She took a shaky swig of her beer. "I'd rather have someone to talk to before I get a prescription. … would you mind listening?"

"I've never had a choice." He shrugged, nonchalantly.

She took no offense whatsoever to his response, but instead, she gave a heavy, melodramatic sigh. "I feel really weird. … and it's not just every now and then, it's like all the time these days… it wasn't as bad before, but it's getting worse."

"Is it like an infection?" Riku asked, his beer mug held closely to his lips.

"I—what? No." Kairi said, sharply. "Um—it's hard to put into words exactly how it feels like… but it's like I'm dying." She looked at him, as he only raised a confused eyebrow at her. "Really, it is." She nodded. "I can't breathe, I can't think, and then my chest starts to hurt and then everything hurts, and then I get really, really sad… like today. Do you know what happened today?" she asked this rhetorically, so of course all Riku could do was shrug and then anticipate an answer. Likewise, Kairi continued. "Today, I was at this bar and then Olette shows up—" there was a certain bitterness in her voice that Riku noticed all too well. "—and she starts being her usual, annoying, bitchy self and I'm like 'okay, that's great, Sora we have to go'—because it's true, Namine said she wanted to see him today anyway, so… I went with him."

"I see."

"Okay, and so then we leave and we're outside and stuff… and then he's like 'my God, you're so jealous of her', and I'm all 'no, I'm not'—"

"I see."

"I was overreacting; it was horrible because I don't even know why it bothered me so much…" She nodded, gravely, her voice trailing off into nothingness. "Whatever, but anyway, then we start talking, and all of a sudden he tells me… that he doesn't want a girlfriend right now… and I don't know why he told me this—well, I do, but still—for some reason, it bothers me, but it confuses me, that he actually told me that…" she sighed. "And it was just the worst feeling… completely indescribable."

Riku stared at her.

Kairi looked back at him.

Riku stared at her.

Kairi looked away, nervously. "W-what is it?"

"Question," Riku spoke up. "Is this a nerves issue? Does your heart start beating really fast? Do you get sweaty palms out of nowhere and for some reason they won't go away? Do you all of a sudden find it hard to breathe?" he asked this all monotonously and very bluntly, but Kairi was much too phased to notice.

"Yeah…" she muttered breathily, staring at him in awe. "How… how did you know?"

"How much beer did I give you? Do you _really_ want me to answer that?" he asked, incredulously, causing her to jump in her seat a little. "I can tell you why you feel so 'sick', okay. It doesn't take a frigging rocket scientist to know what's wrong with you—and I'm studying astrophysics, so believe me, it can't possibly be that hard to fathom. A little _child_ would know what's wrong with you—"

"So tell me already!"

"This whole freaking out for no apparent reason," he continued. "Of course it's because you're jealous! You're seething with jealousy like an overflowing pot, goddamnit, because you _like_ him!"

Kairi gasped, shaking her head. "No!"

"Yes!" he snapped back at her. "Jesus Christ—if you hadn't told me you were playing the jealous bitch this afternoon, I would've assumed that anyway!"

She shook her head again. "But no, I don't like him, I know I don't—that's just weird—"

"_You're_ just weird!"

"No! Shut up, listen to me—it's completely impossible and immensely improbable that I would have any feelings for him whatsoever, because if I did, I'd know. I always turn into a wibbling fruitcake around any guys I like. You know that."

"But you don't need to, right?" he stated, tauntingly. "Because you know him, he knows you, you two have been close since the beginning of time, you know everything about him, he knows everything about you, oh my God, it makes sense!"

"No, it doesn't…" Kairi whined into her half-empty mug of beer. "It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't—"

"You have to quit denying the truth." He told her, with a roll of his eyes. "Listen, it'll be so much easier if… more beer?"

"Wha...?" she looked up momentarily to see him reach for another bottle from the carton by the floor. He set it on the table in front of her. She might've been a bit tipsy, but she could tell that what he just said made no sense whatsoever. "Beer? What's with guys and alcohol? You realize this solves nothing—"

"It'll make you feel better." He retorted, bluntly.

That was enough reason for her. She hesitantly reached for the bottle as Riku pried open the cap for her. She emptied the contents into her mug until it was close to boiling over, and then she brought the mug to her lips shakily. For someone who despised any type of alcohol, she finished off the remainder of the mug pretty fast.

After a few more bottles, Riku was feeling optimistic. Kairi was pink in the cheeks and looked like she was going to pass out any time soon, so he figured he might as well coax her into the truth. Otherwise, she'd wake up believing the exact same thing and he'd have to endure another therapy lesson. Did he mention he had no time for this, seeing as though his last exam of his first semester of university was tomorrow? Well, just so you know.

"Riku," Kairi began, loftily, her voice somewhat groggy. She set down her drink, almost knocking it over in the process, and looked up at him with phased, blank eyes. "Can I tell you something…?"

_Finally._ Riku gave a short smile and nodded enthusiastically.

She took a deep breath, and spoke quietly, "… I do know how to drive."

_What? _"What?" he stuttered. "Uh… w-what?"

She closed her eyes for a moment and nodded, sincerely. "It's true." She had a bittersweet tinge to her voice as if this was some extreme confession. "I can actually drive better than everyone… but I don't want to. … I like being the baby."

Riku glanced at her. "That's, um… that's great, but—"

"Don't tell Sora, okay? If he finds out, he won't drive me anywhere anymore and I like being chaperoned… makes me feel special."

_Perfect._ He tried not to grin too wide. "So, about Sora…" he paused for a moment, hoping she would catch on. She just stared at him. He sighed. … _okay, think, think, think… _"So, Olette's back, is she?"

"Yes." Kairi told him, bitterly. She looked as if she would say something else, but the instant she opened her mouth again, she gasped, a look of shock sweeping its way over her face. "I forgot—I have something to tell you!"

_Finally! _Riku gave a short smile and nodded enthusiastically. _This better be it._

"Riku, I think I'm sick."

Riku's smile faded instantly. _This isn't cool. _He shook his head. "No, no, you're not sick—"

"Yes, yes, I am." She nodded, energetically. "I am, I am sick… because lately, and it's weird, okay, but lately I've been thinking… that I actually like Sora or something else improbable, impossible, unfathomed and ridiculous as that." She brushed a careless strand of hair out of her eyes. "It's just so weird, because I don't know where these creepy thoughts came from."

_My God._ "No, okay, you're not sick!" he snapped at her, causing her to jump a little. "You like him! Just admit it so I can study, okay? Because—I swear to God—my last exam is tomorrow—" he came to an abrupt stop as she raised a confused eyebrow at him. _Don't tell me… _He massaged his temples in an aggravated manner, and groaned, "Okay, Kairi… need I remind you about the whole make-out session after Selphie's—"

She gasped. "But that was different because it was out of sympathy!"

… _and does that make it okay, or something? Is she serious? _"… there's no such thing…" he muttered, haphazardly.

She sighed, and leaned forward to rest her head in her hands. Riku wasn't sure, but he thought he saw a glint of sadness brush its way past her eyes. The instant it was there, it disappeared. "You know…" she began slowly. "It's… it's much harder to admit the truth than… it should be." She glanced at Riku and he gave a mild shrug. She smiled, "At least I know, right? … that should be good enough."

"… well it's better than nothing, I guess." Riku murmured as Kairi got to her feet. He didn't really expect her to head to the door in such a drunken state, but he wasn't expecting her to head to the staircase either.

"Mind if I lie down upstairs?" she asked lazily, while she was already halfway up the stairs. "I'd go home, but you know… can't." she shrugged and disappeared around the corner. It wasn't long before Riku heard a door slam.

The house was silent.

_Okay finally._ He breathed a sigh of relief and rushed over to his makeshift bed, which really only consisted of pillows, blankets and a robe on a sofa, and he began to dig for his textbook wedged in between the cushions. "Last exam tomorrow…" he said in a sing-song voice. He whipped open the book, flipped to chapter twelve, and perused the page carefully for anything he might've missed. It would suck if he happened to have failed his last exam of his first semester in university, because it would forever go down as the ultimate failure. He was pretty sure that—

The bell rang.

He was uncertain as to if it really rang because he wasn't paying much attention. He hoped he was just hearing things and his sad state of mind was just playing a nasty trick on him. So he waited. … and it rang again. "No…" he groaned, tiredly, looking towards the door. He folded up his textbook and set it back on the sofa-bed. "Why can't I just study?" he approached the door and peeked through the peephole. _Don't tell me… _He pulled open the door to reveal a jaded and weary Sora.

---

End of chapter 15:D … this only took forever too. :x I hope it turned out okay ;; Anyway. Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all the reviews! 16 soon. :D


	16. 016

Author's Note: It feels spiffy to be writing video game fiction again. :D Just beat KH2 (depending on when you read this… but it was early April 06 WOOT!), had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I figured I should probably write this before I lost my idea… so here goes. :D This story is loosely very loosely based on old Shakespearean plays and… Panic! At The Disco songs. Hence the weird titles and such… so. :D Review if you like… t'will make me feel fantabulous. :D

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

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Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 16  
But at least she makes me forget…

Riku gave up hoping, and just flat out assumed that someone up there hated his guts and wished for his ultimate failure. For some reason or another, seeing Riku depressed beyond comprehension made Sora feel a bit better about life. He cleared his throat, "Hey." He said shortly.

"What?" Riku replied, just as short.

_Well he isn't his usual cheerful, helpful self at all, is he? _Sora raised an eyebrow at him. He looked away a moment and sighed, tiredly, "Listen, I have a favour to ask you…" he glanced back at Riku and noticed that he was glaring at him. _What the hell? I didn't even ask him anything yet. _Sora looked away nervously and cleared his throat once more. "Actually, uh… c-can I come in? I swear it'll only take a second or something—"

"Well then you can tell me out here—"

"Riku." Sora began, sincerely. "You're really gonna leave me on your porch… in the middle of the night—" _Um… _"—on your porch? Why are you always so stingy? Do you have strippers in your room or something? Is that why you don't want me to come in?"

_Oh my God… _Without listening to another word from his peculiar friend, he grabbed Sora's arm and ushered him inside, shutting the door behind him. He sighed, fatigue pouring from his words like water, "Okay, what do you want? I really—honestly, any other day would've been a bit better, but—"

"Okay, listen," Sora interjected, now seated comfortably on the sofa with a mug of beer in hand. Riku groaned and wandered over to the sofa across from him. All the while, he cast regretful looks towards his textbook on his makeshift bed. "Do you think you can let me stay over for the night?" Riku tore his eyes from his textbook to land upon Sora, sipping beer innocently from the mug. _He didn't actually say that, did he?_

… "You didn't actually say that, did you?" Riku asked, bluntly.

Sora shrugged, "Well it's a long story—"

"I swear to God, any other day would've been better, but—"

"Just hear me out for one second, I swear I have a good reason—"

"There _is_ no good reason."

Sora ignored him and set the mug down on the table. "Anyway," he began, slowly. "I was at this bar today and then Olette shows up and she starts talking about how she rented this hotel and she wanted me to stay with her, and I was all 'okay' and stuff—and I actually really did wanna go, kind of—but then Kairi reminded me that Namine wanted to see me or whatever, so I was all 'okay' and then I went to see Namine at her house, and she was acting all weird…

…

_I don't know if she was sitting at the front door all day, or if she just knew that I was gonna show up at that exact second. But either way, I get within two feet of the door and she opens it, looking really sad and emo, wearing a robe and sipping what I assume was cherry cola and rum. I don't know; it smelled a lot like alcohol and cherries. Whatever. _

"_You're early." She tells me with a sniff. She pushed the door open for me to walk in and then she fluttered over to her living room where she kept a box of tissues and the TV blasting soap operas. … and she hates soap operas. As soon as I appeared in the doorway, she gave me this weird melancholy look, as if I was dying. She waved me in and I walked over to the living room hesitantly. She dotted the corners of her eyes with her tissue, and looked up at me, once again with the same expression. But she told me—and I swear this was just the weirdest thing ever—"I don't think we can be together anymore."_

_Of course I was confused. But before I could say anything, she instantly gasped and brought a hand to her mouth. "I mean—I didn't say 'anymore', I didn't mean that, really… it just slipped out."_

_That wasn't what I was confused about, though. "Be together like… how?" I'm aware I'm quite slow, thanks. But I swear at that time—with the rum and the sniffing and the puffy eyes, I kinda figured she was really sick. And yes, I did assume that she was dying. Whatever. _

_She shook her head rapidly, and gave a heavy sigh. "I meant… together." She whispered and then turned to me. "… like boyfriend and girlfriend, that kind of together."_

_Were we ever? … I wondered if she went around telling people things like that, but I never did ask her. I was oh so confused, but I decided to entertain her fantastical ideas for awhile longer. At least until I left, anyway. "Why not…?" I asked her._

"_Because." She shrugged and gave another sniff of sympathy. "Because I don't think it'd work out, that's all… because you never noticed I liked you."_

_This was probably the second most terrifying moment of my life. I doubt this ever happened to you, Riku, because you're… not into girls. But it's kinda like… sudden death, or not. I remember when I was seven and this weird, freakish girl in my class kept following me around and I hated her, because she was so annoying. So one day I told her to jump off a cliff so no one would have to see her face again—I was seven, leave me alone—and then she starts bawling and she tells the teacher and she's like 'it's because he never noticed I liked him! If it was anyone else who told me that, I wouldn't care!' But it was… really weird. It was before puberty hit, so I was all 'eww girls.' When I was younger, I would've told her to go die and that I hated her, because I was young and I didn't really care what I said to her. Guaranteed, though, now that I'm older, I'm not gonna tell Namine to jump off a cliff. Nor am I gonna tell her that I didn't notice that she liked me, because I could kind of tell but I assumed that was my ego entertaining weird ideas. In the same way, I'm not gonna tell her that I did notice that she liked me, because then she would ask why I didn't ask her out. And, you know, I don't have a straight answer for that. I kind of already tried to formulate a reason for that today, and it didn't work out so well._

_So in about three seconds, I have a million responses flooding my brain, and neither of them were valid in any way whatsoever. Luckily for me, I guess, she continues talking, "And also because you like Kairi."_

_Okay. This was probably the third most terrifying moment of my life. All of a sudden, it's kind of like… I can't breathe. I start hyperventilating, and my cheeks get really warm and all I can think of is—'what? What's she talking about?', and then I told her, "No, I don't." For some reason, that was the only thing I was planning on replying to._

"_Don't lie to me." She practically growled at me. "I know you like her, it's okay… everyone likes her… Roxas likes her—"_

_I stopped listening. I know it had been a while, but I still didn't feel like talking about Roxas. I'd rather talk about Pence than talk about Roxas._

_She mentions something else that I couldn't quite get because, as I mentioned, I stopped listening. She then rushes into the kitchen and gives me one of those boxes filled with cookies and chocolate and… rice and fish. She tells me something and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then ushers me to the door. And so I am left with an assorted box of odd delectables—_

"Sora." Riku interrupted, now popping grapes in his mouth from the kitchen. "Sora, that has nothing to do with why you're here—"

"No, it gets better, I swear."

"I doubt it."

He ignored Riku and continued. "Okay, so I leave Namine's place and go to my dad's, because he lives close-by. Apparently, he isn't there, so I leave and go home…

…

_So I get home and my mom's really freaking me out because she… just is. As soon as I walk in the door, she rushes over to me and starts telling me all this random stuff about… like relationships and stuff. She asked me, "And what kind of wife do you want?" to which I kind of just… didn't reply. _

_Halfway through our 'conversation', she sees I'm holding a box full of rice and chocolate and fish and cookies, and she asks me who gave it to me. I told her I just got back from Namine's. I left out anything at all that had to do with me not going out with Namine, because it just seemed like open conversation for my mom. As soon as I mentioned Namine, her expression grows grave and she suddenly shuts up. I was a bit relieved because it meant I could stuff my face in silence, but then she starts fidgeting with her hands a lot and casting me frequent and creepy glances. "What?" I asked her._

"… _nothing." She nodded unsurely and then rushed back into the kitchen. She calls over her shoulder, "Don't go upstairs unless you're tired."_

_I had no idea why she'd even tell me that. I usually don't camp out in my room anyway because it usually means I need to go hunting for stuff that I can't find underneath my clothes. So, being me, I shrugged, continued to stuff my face, and watched horribly bad movies on TV until about 11. I was kind of surprised that my mom hadn't talked to me since, as she busied herself in the kitchen with… polishing dishes. She never polishes dishes. I think I spent a good half hour watching her from the living room while she polished dishes. … it's just weird, okay._

_I vaguely remember telling her that I was tired and I was gonna go upstairs and sleep. Suddenly, she rushes to the staircase and grins at me. "Sleep well." I'm pretty sure I imagined her winking at me, so I'm gonna pretend that never happened and not elaborate on how weird that was. _

_So, long story short: I go upstairs, push open my door, and freaked out because Olette was passed out lying on my bed in nothing but a bra and my boxers. It was one of those 'oh my God…' moments because really… my mom knew about this didn't she? I can't believe she'd actually invite my ex-girlfriend in and let her wear my boxers… my boxers. Honestly. This is just creepy. I stood at the doorway completely frozen… and in deep contemplation. Okay… I don't think I've seriously outlined how creepy this situation is… so here goes. … my mom wants me to sleep with my ex-girlfriend while she's in the house? What? Okay, no. Just… no. _

_I shut the door slowly, but before it closed completely, I heard Olette's voice from the other side of the door. I was gonna scream and run, but my legs refused to move… okay, let's be honest here: Olette is hot and she's wearing a bra and my boxers… yeah, I wasn't going anywhere. _

"_You're not coming in?" she asked me in nothing more than a whisper. _

_Yeah… I should've… but for all I know, my mom probably set up cameras in my room. And you know what, this is just weird, so I'm not mentioning it anymore. I lied and told her I left something in my car and I'd be right back. As soon as I got downstairs, my mom appeared by the staircase, a grim look on her face. "What are you doing here and not upstairs asleep like you should be?" she asked, testily._

"… _my car." I told her, quickly as I headed to the door. She followed me. "Um—I left… my car… something in my car." That only took forever to say. She crossed her arms and glared as me as I left. Needless to say, there was nothing in my car that was even slightly relevant. But really, I couldn't stay there. She's crazy—they both are. And so—_

"Sora." Riku interrupted, lazily. He was slouched over the backing of the sofa, his head buried into the sofa's back. "Sora, this makes no sense."

"I'm getting there, just listen." He told him, edgily. "God—anyway, so I realized that I officially had nowhere to stay. I wasn't a loser and I wasn't gonna sleep in my car because I did that before, and it's so uncomfortable. So I start driving and I'm like 'okay, who else do I know?' and then I'm like Hayner—"

"So why aren't you at Hayner's—?"

"Just shut up and listen."

…

_Okay, so I get to Hayner's place and I knock at the door. I was reciting exactly what I was gonna ask him so it wouldn't sound odd. Okay… 'My estranged ex-girlfriend is at my house, in my bed wearing a bra and my boxers, and I'm not staying there while my mom's in the house. So you have to let me stay over for the night. The end.'_

_I jumped a little when the door swung open and—there stood Hayner's mom. I definitely wasn't gonna recite my speech to her, so I just asked her if Hayner was there and if I could talk to him for a second. She smiled at me, very sweetly, and said, "Did Hayner not tell you?"_

_I blinked at her. "Tell me what?"_

"_That he's sick with strep throat, of course. It's gotten worse, you know."_

_Well if that's the case, of course he didn't tell me. I'm assuming he couldn't speak anymore. "How worse is… worse?" I asked. _

_She gave a slight pout and shook her head slowly. "Since his little sister's deaf, he's been communicating with sign language for the last half of the afternoon. He can speak, but he says 'it hurts like a kick in the groin'."_

_That just sucks._

"_I'll tell him you stopped by." She told me. I told her that it was okay, I'd call him tomorrow. I left before she had any time to remind me that her dearest son couldn't speak. He sure stays sick pretty long, though. _

_Okay. So I got back in my car and I start driving and—_

"This is really long, Sora." Riku groaned from the sofa once more. "How much longer is this? I really need to study—"

Sora ignored him. "So I start driving and I'm like 'okay, who else do I know?' and for some reason, I couldn't think of anyone. And I started freaking out because I couldn't remember anyone's names… save for Roxas.

…

_Okay so I get to Roxas' place. I'm a bit sceptical to actually approach him because I hadn't talked to him for a while and I got the feeling that he knew I couldn't really stand him. But I was desperate. However, as I rang the doorbell, I suddenly remembered that I did know other people and it wasn't too late to turn back and go ask someone else if I could stay for the night. Just as I willed my feet to run, Roxas pulled open the door. He had a bottle of water in his hand and was wearing nothing but sweatpants… okay. … this was just awkward. I, unlike you maybe, am not used to staring directly at guys' chests, so… yeah. I looked away briefly and muttered, "Do you always answer the door half-naked?"_

"_What?" he asked me. He looked down at his barren chest, "Oh—uh… one second." He shut the door in my face. I waited, twiddling my thumbs, ogling at the dark night sky… stifling a yawn. I was getting tired. I seriously hoped he wouldn't mind if I passed out on his floor for the night. I didn't need to be fed in the morning; I could just leave. Roxas came back in a matter of minutes wearing a t-shirt. "Is everything okay?" he asked, casually, as if he hadn't just answered the door wearing close to nothing—okay, I don't even answer the door wearing close to nothing! Anyway._

"_Um…" I began, trying to rethink my whole speech. "Uh, well, my estranged ex-girlfriend is at my house, in my bed wearing a bra and my boxers, and I'm not staying there while my mom's in the house. So you have to let me stay over for the night. … please?"_

_He nodded. I assumed it was a yes and for a moment my insides were squeeing, but it was just a nod of confirmation. "Yeah, let me just ask my parents if it's okay first." He said._

"_Yeah, sure, no problem." I told him, shooing him away to find them. He shut the door in my face again. He didn't tell me, though, that his parents were always out cold by 10 and he'd now have to wake them from their sleep since it was now 12-something. I honestly was falling asleep standing up. Before I tipped over, the door swung open and I tried desperately to regain my balance. When I looked up, it wasn't Roxas who looked back at me, but a stern, older version of him… his dad. He had his robe pulled around his shoulders, his arms crossed, and a very, very questioning gaze directed at me. I didn't know exactly what to make of it, because it was weird… he had this odd suspicion lingering in his eyes, as if he only thought the worst things of why I'd showed up so late. I had no idea if I should speak first or if I should shut up and wait for him to cuss me out. Either way, the situation wasn't looking good. _

… _couldn't Roxas just sneak me in the living room without waking his Pleasantville-bought parents? What the hell?_

"_Um," his father spoke first, eyeing me weirdly. "I actually have somewhere to go early in the morning, and… Roxas' mother starts work earlier than me tomorrow, so…" he cleared his throat and flashed me a very disgruntled look. It was distinct… and now I finally knew why he was looking at me like that. "… wouldn't want to leave the two of you alone and all." He cleared his throat once more and gave me a stern look._

… _he thought I was gay, didn't he?_

_I told him something along the lines of 'I understand', and I got back in my car and—_

"Sora…" Riku groaned from the floor. He was sprawled across the kitchen floor with a blanket pulled tightly around his shoulders. He coughed, "Sora, really—what's the point—"

"If I didn't tell you all this, you wouldn't believe me, would you?" Sora asked him testily. "…just listen, it's almost over I swear." He ignored Riku's blatantly obvious sigh from the kitchen and continued. "Okay, so by now I'm desperate and I don't care who I stay with. So I'm driving and I'm like 'who else do I know?', and then I remembered Wakka lived nearby, so…

…

_Okay, so I get to Wakka's house and without rehearsing anything, I run up to the door and knock really loudly. It sounds like there's a ton of people awake inside, so I was even surprised anyone heard me knocking. Nevertheless, someone opened the door. It was Wakka's mom. Okay… so she's not from around here, or maybe she's like a fobby native from the Besaid Islands; I'm not so sure. Either way, she has the thickest, most incomprehensible accent I've ever heard from anyone in my life. I was dying trying to understand her. I shouldn't have even asked her anything; I should've turned and ran. Really. But I didn't. I was beyond the point of desperation, so I asked her, "Is Wakka here?" _

_To which she replied, in some really thick accent: "Ye mi don no nan bou' Wakka, se ii com ba'k from ii frien, se fai has 'go buh mi nan sii, ya. Ah mi kin se ii don bi dat restafami—mi gon call im watcha mi se?"_

… _okay, so I ran. I wasn't gonna bother and decipher all that. I'll just assume Wakka wasn't there. I got back in my car, and I start driving, and then my mom calls me and she's all 'COME HOME RIGHT NOW WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?' and she's_ _just bitching me out like no tomorrow. I tell her something like 'mom, I'll be there in a second, just… go to bed first', and I hang up. And so I'm still driving and I'm all 'who else do I know?' and…_

… _no interruptions? … okay good._

_Okay, so I'm driving and then I'm like 'okay, Tidus has to let me in', so I go over to his place. Keep in mind that I'm desperate right now, okay? I knock like a thousand times and, thankfully, Tidus comes to the door. I suppose my eye bags are dropping off my face or he just started staring at me like a dumbass for no reason. "What happened to you?" he asked me, gawking at me._

_ I shook my head, "Whatever, listen. My estranged ex-girlfriend is at my house, in my bed wearing a bra and my boxers, and I'm not staying there while my mom's in the house. So you have to let me stay over for the night. You just have to! Honestly—I don't care if it's on the living room floor, okay—but please… I have nowhere else to go." _

"_Sorry, man," Tidus muttered, apologetically. "But, uh… the living room floor's being torn out… we're replacing it with carpet." He smiled at this thought. Oh yes, carpeted bliss._

_I gawked at him… okay. When I said that… it was figurative, not LITERAL. I thought him, of all people, would understand that. But no. "Okay sure." I told him bluntly, and then turned to leave._

…

"… and then I realized," he grinned. He gave a short chuckle and Riku lifted himself slowly from the kitchen floor to stare at him, just to see if he'd gone mad. Sora was beaming, "I realized that I know you, and you never sleep nor do you have a freakish accent, and we've known each other since the time you were straight, so I figured you had to let me stay with you… please?"

"You think…" Riku got to his feet and headed over to sit on the sofa opposite him. "You think I'd actually say no after that long-ass story, and then have the next guy after me listen to the whole thing?" He scoffed, "Whatever—you can stay." Before he uttered another word, Sora rushed over his makeshift bed by the corner, slid his textbook onto the ground, and threw the covers over his head. Riku gaped, "What—wait, but—"

"You know," Sora muttered from under the covers. There was a long and melodramatic sigh before he continued, "I kinda didn't expect you to say yes, especially after the… Selphie incident… completely hindering our friendship."

Riku couldn't help but laugh. _Does he still think that's true? _

Sora scoffed and with a roll of his eyes, he said, "Yeah well, of course you enjoyed it."

Riku stopped laughing. "It never happened, okay?" he told him out of spite. "It was just some weird coincidence that my last name starts with the same letters as 'Kairi', and—" _Oh shit. _He bit down on his tongue and rushed to the staircase, peering up towards the doors. He hoped she was dead asleep by now and she didn't hear that. The last thing she probably wanted was to wake up and find out that he had failed in keeping her little secret. There was no activity upstairs, luckily. With a sigh of relief, he turned back to the living room to see Sora sitting up with nothing but confusion painted across his features. Riku tried to ignore that simple fact and looked away momentarily. "W-what?" he asked, nervously.

"What did you say…?" Sora asked him, quite distantly and definitely unlike his character moments ago.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit… _Riku shook his head quickly. "It's nothing—you're just tired, right?"

"But I swear you said—"

"And I'm drunk—so… don't take me so seriously... o-okay?" he gave a nervous smile and headed over to his textbook lying on the ground by the sofa. Ignoring Sora's prying eyes, he snatched the book and rushed up the stairs. When he got to the top, he called back, "Good night", and disappeared into the first open door, which was thankfully his room. He didn't wanna have to sleep in Axel's room, because then he'd bitch at him for days when he got back.

Sora fell back onto the sofa-bed, still thinking over what Riku said… or didn't say, rather. He wasn't the brooding type and completely ignored what Namine had told him earlier, but it seemed to slip its way into his mind just then. Maybe that was what she was talking about. Maybe her and Riku were talking about the same thing… the 'Selphie Incident', as it was now deemed, had many different versions after all. And Sora desperately wanted to believe that they were all making this up, just to put strange thoughts in his head.

_But if that's the case… _he thought. …_it doesn't make sense. It's not like… they put that dream in my head too._

…

_I'm just one perverted little kid, that's all. _

That was reason enough for him. He rolled onto his side and threw the covers over his head. He would pretend that Riku said nothing, and that Namine was just imagining things, and that dream was one of many that would come and go sporadically… he would ignore those things, as he usually did, and just assume the world was going into another bout of craziness and he would stay out of it.

But he couldn't ignore the odd racing he got in his chest every time he thought of her.

Of Kairi.

That… was real. Odd... kind of disturbing in a 'has-it-always-been-there-but-I-never-noticed?' kind of way...

...but real, nonetheless.

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Haha OKAY. I know this was REALLY LONG. XD And to some it may seem REALLY POINTLESS. But IT'S NOT. Every scene in this chapter is IMPORTANT; even the scene with Wakka's MOM. :D Speaking of Wakka's mom, I doubt anyone's interested in what she's saying, but anyway:

"_I don't know anything about Wakka, they told me he came back from his friend's house close to five hours ago, but I haven't seen him. His sister says he got a job at this restaurant—I'll try to call him, so what did you want me to ask him for you?_"

Changed the summary again... XD;; I like this one better anyway. :x

SO. … next chapter is the last :D I appreciate every single review I've gotten so far and I really appreciate the fact that people even read this ;; My mind is a cracked chasm. Anywhoo thanks so much! Please review. :D


	17. 017

Author's Note: I'm changing the author's note:D This rarely ever happens. I'm much too lazy to rewrite this thing ever ;; So yes. This is the last chapter. Lalala thanks so much to everyone who left a review! You are automatically loved. :D Now to sedate the million other KH fic ideas breezing through my head . ;;

Disclaimer: I can't even afford chocolate, so… I don't see how I could own anything from Disney or Squenix. ;o;

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Midsummer Panic  
Chapter 17  
I quite like my rose-coloured glasses on this way, thank you

Pain.

Extreme, _throbbing _pain.

But she didn't mind it, really. As soon as her eyes cracked open and she noticed sunlight filling up every corner of the room… it was going to be a _good_ day… or not. Not all the pain or the sun in the world could make her forget her whole "heart-to-heart" with Riku from last night. _I didn't actually agree with him, did I? He was just taking advantage of the fact that I was drunk… what a bastard. _She gave a short yawn and sat up amidst the pillows and blankets. She had no idea what was up with Axel's pillow fetish, but she always thought it was adorable that he loved soft things. She massaged her temples slowly in an attempt to rid herself of her supposed hangover and managed to catch something at the corner of her eye. It was red, frizzy and hunched over the edge of the bed, sleeping peacefully. She poked at its frizzy red hair for a moment and noticed that it was still asleep. "… you could've woken me up, you know." She whispered to it, _him_… Axel. Yet a smile came to her lips as she brushed his hair aside with her fingertips. … _okay if this isn't awkward, then I don't know what is._

She sighed, wistfully. "I had a dream last night… very weird." She told him. She glanced at him a moment, just to make sure he was still asleep, and then continued. "It was after I passed out from alcohol indulgence, so… it's a little off." A pause. "Don't laugh."

Axel said nothing.

"I was at the beach," she began. "And I was wearing this wedding dress… but it was black. Black, but the undergarments of the skirt were blood red. I remember because I kept reminding myself that. I had just run away from my wedding, apparently. I was by myself for a long time watching the waves… and then someone comes to join me. I never saw his face, but I knew it was Sora because… b-because it just was." A pause; she looked over at Axel to see if he was still sleeping. His eyes hadn't twitched at all. She whispered to him, "You listening?"

Axel said nothing.

"Okay so," she continued. "The two of us start talking, although I can't remember what we were talking about. It went on for a while. I remember being really happy. And then he asks me something like, 'so where are you going?' or whatever. And for a while I was confused. I mean, I didn't really know where I was going, but… I knew… in a way. So I told him, without thinking… 'I'm going to your funeral'." A pause; she looked over at Axel's sleeping figure. "It only seems weird now, I swear."

Axel said nothing.

"Well," she nodded. "I told him, and then he gave me this confused look and says, 'well you better get going or else you'll be late'. I was confused, but _I _wasn't confused… sort of… because in my dream, I was all 'that's true—I better leave now then', but now thinking about it, it doesn't make any sense. I leave and I'm running across town in a wedding dress, but no one seems to find this weird. I get to this graveyard where there's all these people I've never seen before and they're all gathered around this grave. I remember seeing on the gravestone the words 'Sora Kai Akela'. I know that's not his middle name, but for some reason, that's what was written there and for some reason, I knew it was his anyway. I kept trying to look over into the casket, but this guy wouldn't let me and he kept pulling me back." A pause; she turned to Axel. "I can't remember, but it was probably you. You were always the jealous, stingy, bitchy type, anyway."

Axel said nothing.

"In any case," she continued once more. "I'm kind of in awe, because it's like I had just realized that he was dead. I take a few steps back and I'm in pure denial because I can't believe that he's dead. And then, all of sudden, Sora appears beside me and he asks me 'what's wrong?' and I just break down and start crying into his shoulder. And I told him, 'it's because I never got to tell you'… and then I get this random flashback with my dad at the beach when I was seven. … and then I woke up."

Axel said nothing.

Kairi sighed and held a hand to her forehead. "Maybe I _am_ sick…"

"Or maybe you just like him?"

Kairi jumped a little and clutched onto the covers by her knees as Axel slowly blinked and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His hair was definitely ten times puffier when he sat up, and as much as she felt like petting it as she normally would, she couldn't help but feel deep resentment towards him. "_What_?" she snapped at him, bitterly.

He shrugged. "Maybe you just like him. Go figure." He slowly got to his feet, massaging his knees in an odd manner. "I should've just woken you up, you know. I need my satin pillows for my hair or else _this_ happens—" at this, he pointed to the frizz sticking out from his head. "—I don't think I can go to work like this…"

"How much did you hear?" she asked sharply, ignoring his random string of complaints. "I mean, did you hear the whole thing or what?"

He headed over to his drawer and pulled out his pocket mirror. "The whole thing." He told her, poking at his hair airily. "Really, Kairi; dreaming about a certain guy usually means as such."

It felt as though a rock was sinking itself in Kairi's throat. Clearly, being around Axel was like extreme death to poodles and was just feeding her negativity, and her headache. She slid off his bed and wandered towards the door, careful to close it behind her. She rushed into the bathroom to freshen up and rub her morning eye bags away, but still Axel's voice lingered in her head. _So annoying… what's his problem anyway? _She found his door shut just the way she left it, and pushed it open to find him straightening his hair carelessly. "Y-you know," she began, testily. "This is the reason we could never be together; because you always, always, _always_ make me feel like shit every single chance you get."

He looked at her. "…for telling the truth?"

She glared at him.

He smiled at her, and went back to straightening his hair.

_Self-righteous, egotistical BASTARD. _She ignored him and turned to head downstairs. She wanted another drink; another drink, maybe something to eat—and then, she'd leave. She wasn't supposed to be here anyway. Speaking of which, she'd better call home and tell them she wasn't kidnapped by some foreign alien—_named Axel. … God, I hate him! … where's my phone? _She got downstairs and spotted her bag by the table. As she reached over to get it, she also noticed something very similar to Sora's keys sitting on the table. It wasn't as if she could accidentally mistake them for someone else's, because no one else had 3 keys and a bajillion key chains. "That doesn't make any sense, though…" she muttered, eyeing the keys oddly. "Why would he leave his keys here… and then leave?" … clearly she wasn't thinking properly.

Just then, Sora wandered over. She stood up instantly and gawked at him, as if this was some odd continuation of her dream from before. _It's just after effects… ugh—see? Beer is good for nothing! _Though she blamed the alcohol, she still didn't think that she'd be hallucinating. That was just too much. She pinched her arm, cringed, and deduced in all of five seconds that beer in the devil and it kills your ability to think logically.

"Are you sick or something?" he asked her, bluntly.

For once, she shook her head. "Where's Riku?"

"School." Sora shrugged, and then wandered back into the kitchen to his bowl of rice. Kairi hadn't noticed, but he'd been there the whole time, observing her observing his car keys. "He says he'll be back around 2, but I don't know why he told me that since I'll probably be gone by then." He gave another careless shrug and proceeded to stuff his face with rice.

Kairi, who suddenly forgot that she wanted a drink and a ride home, collapsed on Riku's sofa, clutching her bag tightly. Everything about this morning was making her nauseous. She wasn't taking too well to the fact that there was more than one person running around who knew her not-so-secret secret. It was like a bad movie this time. She would just hope that she could go to bed and wake up the next day, without having to live through all this again. So what if she knew the truth? That was enough, right? She didn't need to tell him or anything. I mean—what would he need with that useless piece of information? If she told him that she _kind of, almost, barely even _liked him… or even that, yes, she was terribly jealous of Olette… there wouldn't be an apocalypse, or even anything close. Therefore, she deduced that useless information should be kept secret because it is useless and to alter its categorization wouldn't bring any good fortune to anyone—

"Where's Axel?"

She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't really expected him to say anything, let alone ask anything about Axel. She replied, "Upstairs. How come?"

He shook his head, "Just curious."

She looked at him, confusion blatantly painted across her features.

He ignored her, and cleared his throat, "Roxas has been calling for you all this morning." And suddenly, from the depths of his pocket, he pulled out Kairi's phone, complete with the paopu fruit strap. He flipped it open and began to peruse through the messages while wandering over to her with it. "I didn't actually pay attention to what he was telling me, but I figured after the first call, he'd assume you weren't there and would stop calling." He sighed, and dropped down in the seat beside her. She glared at him, none too inconspicuously, as he poked avidly at her phone. He appeared to notice and handed the phone back to her.

"Thank you—" she murmured, clasping the phone. Just as she was browsing her caller ID—there were at least five 'R. Lydmann's between then and nine in the morning, which was of course only a two-hour span—Sora swung his legs up on the sofa and rested his head comfortably on her lap. He, of course, found nothing wrong with this, but she was as tense as humanly possible. She completely _froze_. … _what is wrong with you? Stop being weird! _

"You should probably call him back or something." He told her absently, glancing up at her a moment.

She looked at him and then towards her phone, with a heavy, burdened sigh. "Maybe…"

"Or," he continued, just as nonchalant. He was doing an excellent job of concealing just how annoyed he was about this whole 'Roxas' thing—"You don't have to call him back; I bet whatever he has to say isn't so important anyway." …_we're never congratulating you on your excellence ever again._

Kairi stared at him, her voice showing hints of annoyance. "… what?"

"Well you can call him if you want..." He replied, and then glanced up at her.

She still retained her annoyed look towards him. "I really don't understand why you don't like him—"

_Oh? … neither do I._

"—I mean, if it's because of _me_, then that shouldn't be a problem; there's absolutely _nothing_ going on between me and Roxas."

_What? Oh shit. _He looked at her. "T-that's not it."

She smiled, and brushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes. "Don't be silly, yes it is."

He ignored her and occupied himself staring ahead at the wall. _This is crazy. I mean—what the hell? What would give her the idea that I don't like Roxas? How did this all go so wrong so fast? What the hell?_

"I'm not going out with him." She said.

… _why would she just randomly tell me that? It's not like I asked, right? … go on, say it. _"I know." He replied, timidly. _I'm sick of coaching you. _

Silence.

And then:

"Can I… tell you something?" Her voice was soft and very distant. She was even surprised that she even said anything. It wasn't too late to randomly say 'actually, never mind', and then forget about it… right. She would tell him to forget she even said anything, and then she could go home and—

"Sure. What is it?"

… _damn it. _She cleared her throat and took a deep, shaky, _nervous_ breath. _Would you calm down? This is not a confessional! You're acting as if you never talked to him before—_ "Um… okay, this is probably gonna take a while, so… just shut up for awhile, okay?"

He raised a confused eyebrow at her, and replied, "Okay…?"

"Okay." She nodded, slowly. … _where to begin…? … what were you going to tell him anyway? _"Oh! Right, okay… w-well… I actually was really, really jealous of you and Olette at a time. And I think… I think that was the only reason I went out with Axel."

"What was that about me?"

She snapped her attention towards the doorway where Axel was standing, now fully-clothed and hair fully-straightened. He raised an eloquent eyebrow at her, and then let his eyes slide back and forth between her…and Sora… on her lap. "… something going on?" he asked.

"No!" she snapped at him. "What—_why_ are you still here?"

"I live here—"

"Whatever—just—go away, okay?"

"Sure—but if Riku comes back, tell him—"

"—tell him that you went to work, I know!"

"—and that after, I'm going—"

"—you're gonna go see your girlfriend—yes, I know, okay!"

"… okay." He gave her a short wave and then headed to the door. "See you later—bye Sora."

"Uh, bye." Sora mumbled back. Once he heard the door shut, he glanced up at Kairi again, ever-so-innocently, and told her, "I'm… listening… you can continue."

"Okay, well," Kairi scoffed, crossing her arms in a nonchalant manner. _Where was I…? Oh my God, I'm forgetting! Oh my God I don't wanna do this anymooooore— _"It almost seemed like you were ignoring me, which is why I got so attached to Axel. I know it's weird, but I've never really been outwardly ignored before. But I'm not stupid; I know you were kinda pissed off that I spent so much time with Axel… I dunno… it made me happy to know that you were miserable."

Sora gawked at her. "What—"

"I told you no talking." She smiled, giving him an affectionate pat on the head. He glared at her. She grinned. "You and Axel seemed too much alike though… kinda weirded me out for awhile. I think the only difference between the two of you was that… he was a manipulative jerk and it bothered me, whereas you are a manipulative jerk and I can forgive you…" she cleared her throat. "It's weird how the world works."

"Kairi, what—"

"Shush."

"But—"

"Shush, _please_?"

"Okay, but Kairi—"

"But then, I told myself," she continued, blatantly ignoring him. She'd be able to leave sooner if she just pretended she was talking to herself. That would have to suffice for now. "I said… why is it that I don't care if you're such a bitch to me, but with anyone else, it bothers me…? I assumed it was just because I knew you longer than I knew him… but even if… it got to the point where it was like, 'okay, he could abuse me like this, and I wouldn't care because I like him'—" She sighed, and said nothing more. For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to say anything else… she would've given anything to start talking again, but her jaw was frozen and her mind, in such a state that everything just stopped the way it was.

Sora quickly sat up and swung his feet over to meet the floor. He didn't look anything short of puzzled, and in fact seemed as though he was on the brink of words but refused to speak. She almost wished he would say something, but whatever part of her that was left sane was dreading him saying anything. It was like a slow and painful death for her.

And yet still, Sora wouldn't speak.

_Well why not? _She bit down on her bottom lip, nervously. _Is he serious? He has absolutely nothing to say to me? What the hell? … well, come on, Kairi, let's be honest here: were you hoping for a response? Was that really the point of this exercise? _

She glanced at him.

He glanced at her—and slowly sunk deeper into the sofa.

"Oh, come on, say something." She whined with a pout, her auburn hair falling delicately towards her eye.

"Well, like what…?" He stuttered, nervously.

_Oh God—I don't know! _"Anything. A-anything's fine."

_Anything's fine? Is she trying to kill me? _… He shrugged.

_He's shrugging at me. I don't believe it. _"You have nothing to say to me… _at all_?" she asked him, raising an eloquent eyebrow in inquisition.

"Well, that's not—uh…" _Anything, she says? _ "…well, I was never a bitch to you on purpose."

"Tch, I know." She rolled her eyes.

_I will never understand women, ever. _"… and—and I think it's… _interesting._" He told her.

"Interesting…?"

"Y-yes."

"You think I'm _interesting_? Is that it?"

"… yes."

"_What_?"

"It's just—well, I was thinking, and—" _Why would she tell me that? Why? Why now, when everything's seemingly neutral? I mean—I can ignore the fact that she was probably upstairs with Axel this whole time… well, I can try. _"—it's… just interesting that you'd… tell me that, that's all." _I don't think you're seeing eye-to-eye with me anymore._

She sighed, crossing her arms and sinking deeper into the sofa as well. "Interesting, he says…" she muttered, absently. "Interesting, interesting, interesting…"

He cleared his throat, causing her to jump a little. "So. Aren't you gonna recite the generic speech—how you hope this isn't gonna destroy our friendship and stuff?" he gave her a sideways glance and she quickly sat straight again, her eyes mirroring clarity much gracefully than they had before. "What?" he asked. "You _actually_ have one?"

"No." she told him, turning to face him slowly. "N-no, I don't… I didn't prepare one of those because I know we're not going out or anything… you told me you didn't want a girlfriend, I didn't waste my time writing a speech: everyone wins."

Her voice had a certain underhand tone, which, of course, he noticed.

_But those are the best types of speeches. I like hearing them. I haven't heard them very often, and if I did, that'd just be weird since the majority of the people I know are guys. … _He simply shrugged. "Y-you're right." _Are you tripping over your words? What's wrong with you? This is not the time! _

"Question." Kairi began, loftily. She smiled at him. "Why is it so _interesting_ that I would tell you all this?"

He looked at her. She was on the verge of giggles and her eyes had a faint, but very distinct _glint_ about them. "… well." _She's screwing with my head; I know it. _"I told you… it just is. It's just—coincidental, almost."

"_Coincidental?_" Kairi gasped. "Is—is that why it's interesting?"

He had to laugh. He had no idea why. Things had an annoyingly ironic way of turning out; that's all. "Kai, what are you even talking about?"

She ignored him. "It is, isn't it—because—because you were gonna tell me the exact same thing, weren't you?" she was beaming now; positively radiant.

His smile faded slowly. _She's twisting my words and I like it. What's wrong with me? _"Uh, no." he said, loftily. "Okay, you realize that only happens in movies and, you know, other creepy scenarios that don't ever happen in real life."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well then what were you thinking before, when I was babbling to my heart's content?" A pause. "…well, Riku's… content, really."

"Riku?"

_Yes, Riku. _"Just… answer the question." She sighed, offhandedly. She kept subconsciously looking towards the doorway. If Riku did happen to pop back in that exact second, it would seem too much like—

"'Well at least it's not Roxas'… 'or someone else'." Sora told her, nonchalantly, as if five seconds ago this whole ordeal wasn't 'really creepy'. _It sounded better when you were thinking it. Definitely._

"… what?" she mumbled.

He glanced at her momentarily and gave another shrug. "Well," he repeated slowly. "… well—I don't know, at least it's not Roxas… okay. I remember last time when I asked you who was more important to you—_out of sheer curiosity_… and you never told me." He turned to look at her.

She was in awe; confused, frustrated—and yet in awe at the same time. "That's it? That's all you're concerned about?" she asked, incredulously. "After _all _that and after everything I told you, there's just no way that you could be thinking about Roxas!"

"Don't say it like that; you make me sound gay."

"Roxas? Are you kidding me?" she laughed. "I'm amused. Is—did you really not like him that much?"

Sora ignored her, as she seemed to be gushing with satire, and continued with his homily. "I have nothing against him, actually…" he nodded. "Well, it just didn't make sense why everyone was all in love with Roxas, because… that didn't need to happen." A pause. "But, uh, really—but I'm just happy it's not him."

"Whatever that means."

"Of course."

Kairi rolled her eyes. _Stubborn, stubborn child. _

Quite hesitantly… she leaned closer towards him… and delicately pressed her lips against his. She softly shut her eyes… slowly… and suddenly, all she could see was her black wedding dress by the beach.

_Wait a second, what the hell! _If this wasn't such a crucial moment, Sora would've slapped himself. This was no time to be in deep thought—in deep _reflection_ over the current situation. This was no time to be thinking at all—_Are you kidding me? You're making out with your best friend and you're SOBER? Uh—no, things just don't happen like that, okay. Do you understand how this makes no sense at all? Do you? … ugh, Jesus Christ. _

Well.

In the midst of Sora's ever-so-analytical thinking…

He kissed her back.

---

The ending for this was exceptionally hard to write, because as sappy as I wanted to make it, I couldn't XD;; is a sap for romance fics . ;; If it was too sappy, it would just kill the overall mood of the story. And that would suck. XD;; Considering this wasn't really a sappy story, excessive sap in the last chapter would be… really cheesy… . ;; Plus, the mood of this story is something I really like and if I killed it, I would never forgive myself. The end. :D

Anyway. :D Thanks so much to everyone who left a review since chapter 1:D I do look over them all, and I really, really appreciate it :D Um. Yes. I love you all. :D

By the by... and I figure I should mention this now, since it seems to be freaking out a lot of people XD: I'm in love with ambiguous endings. So sorry if you aren't. :D

-lulu


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